Compiled from ancient and scattered texts and based on groundbreaking new research, Handbook of Chinese Mythology is the most comprehensive English-language work on the subject ever written from an exclusively Chinese perspective. This work focuses on the Han Chinese people but ranges across the full spectrum of ancient and modern China, showing how key myths endured and evolved over time. A quick reference section covers all major deities, spirits, and demigods, as well as important places, mythical animals and plants, and related items.
The West's first encounters with the folk tales and myths of the East proved to be a heady experience, as they were based on an entirely different value system and worldview than those that are reflected in the Greek myths and most subsequent Western folk tales. In Myths and Legends of China, author E.T.C. Werner offers up a rich tapestry of Chinese folk narratives. A must-read for fans of world myths, fairy tales, and legends.
Even today the economic powerhouse of modern China takes strength and nourishment from its legacy of antiquity. Ancient China illuminates this venerable heritage with unprecedented scholarship and vividness.
This is the first full scholarly study of the Great Wall of China to appear in any language, and it challenges many deeply held ideas about Chinese history. Drawing both on primary sources and on the latest archaeology, the book first demonstrates that the standard account of the Great Wall is untrue and misleading and then presents a convincing new account. It begins by tracing the various walls and systems of frontier defences that existed in early Chinese history, and shows how the greatest of these achieved a mythical symbolic stature which long survived the Wall itself. A striking concluding chapter traces how the true history of the Wall was lost in the early twentieth century as it was gradually transformed into a Chinese national symbol explained through historical myth. The book is an important contribution to the history of China's defensive policy, and her ideological attitudes, and will be of interest both to students of Chinese history and of international relations in the pre-modern world.
A leading scholar in the United States on Chinese archaeology challenges long-standing conceptions of the rise of political authority in ancient China. Questioning Marx's concept of an "Asiatic" mode of production, Wittfogel's "hydraulic hypothesis," and cultural-materialist theories on the importance of technology, K. C. Chang builds an impressive counterargument, one which ranges widely from recent archaeological discoveries to studies of mythology, ancient Chinese poetry, and the iconography of Shang food vessels.
In Chinese Mythology, Anne Birrell provides English translations of some 300 representative myth narratives selected from over 100 classical texts, many of which have never before been translated into any Western language. Organizing the narratives according to themes and motifs common to world mythology, Birrell addresses issues of source, dating, attribution, textural variants, multiforms, and context. Drawing on exhaustive work in comparative mythology, she surveys the development of Chinese myth studies, summarizes the contribution of Chinese and Japanese scholars to the study of Chinese myth since the 1920s, and examines special aspects of traditional approaches to Chinese myth. The result is an unprecedented guide to the study of Chinese myth for specialists and nonspecialists alike.
This collection of twenty-one articles represents some of the major writings by one of the United States' leading Sinologists, Derk Bodde. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
This book is a comprehensive book about China's art, life, and culture. Using the latest discoveries by historians this book explores China's literature, music, religions, economy and cuisine.
Illustrated Myths & Legends of China is a profusely illustrated collection of 32 carefully chosen tales of Chinese myth and legend. With more than 100 illustrations drawn over two thousand years of all aspects of Chinese art—including painting, pottery and porcelain, jade, bronzes and tomb decoration—Illustrated Myths & Legends of China is a vividly written collection of tales of the universe's emergence from chaos, the creation of the world in which the first Chinese people appeared and a depiction of how the many strands of myth and legend have influenced Chinese culture. An impressive array of heroic figures and rich storytelling are at the center of these tales including: Pangu opening heaven to save the earth from chaos. Nuwa creating man and repairing the vault of heaven. Fuxi fixing the calendar by observing the heavens. Shennong creating agriculture. Cangjie inventing writing thus creating the basis for Chinese culture. Fragments of these myths and legends are found in Chinese paintings, wood artifacts, relief carvings, and lacquer art which are illustrated in this book along with informative text. Anyone interested in Chinese culture, mythology, history or art will find this collection a must-have volume for their bookshelf.
