This has been my evening reading since I returned from my first trip to China at the end of August. Actually, I've been reading it on and off for a while, but at 1,000 pages, it is taking a while. So far, I've reached the rise of Zhu Yuanzhang and the founding of the Ming Dynasty.Reading through the reviews in the Amazon link above, one reviewer considers the book lacking narrative. I'm not sure that's fair unless you're expecting an overarching theme to the entire 900 year history covered.
The one simple thing I'm taking away from the book so far is that the focus on dynastic history often obscures study both long-term economic or social trends as well as local history. So much is written, both in China and in the West, that focuses chiefly on the establishment and maintenance of imperial authority.
I realize this is a comment more on popular perceptions, rather than on scholarly work, but I have yet to find the kinds of detailed studies of local social history that are popular in European historical study.
2 comments:
Eric,
This is a great blog post - but not for the reason you posted.
The blog post is about a book. OK.
But the gem is the pictures of your china trip - which I would not know about or see without this post.
I like the banquet photos. Really neat. I get a sense of where you went - what an adventure.
I could not find a photo of you in any of your photos (I did not look at them all at this point). I find that an interesting trade mark.
Thanks for sharing!
TEK
Good point. I was relying on other Oberlinians to take pictures of me. I've added a couple that others provided to my Flickr page.
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