From Ming to Chʻing: Conquest, region, and continuity in seventeenth-century China

JONATHAN D. SPENCE

Yale University Press

In this highly praised book, Jonathan D. Spence recounts the story of Ts'ao Yin, hereditary bondservant to the Manchu emperors. Ts'ao Yin, whose great-grandfather was captured and enslaved by the Manchus and whose descendent wrote Dream of the Red Chamber, China's most famous novel, becomes the focal point of a fascinating study that sheds light on the social and political life of the early Manchu period. This edition of Ts'ao Yin and the K'ang-hsi Emperor has a new introduction by Jonathan D. Spence. "A brilliant synthesis of biographical, social, economic and institutional history,this book is a 'life and times' in the best sense of the term. It uses Ts'ao Yin's career to illuminate the Chinese governmental institutions in which he served between 1674 and 1712, and these institutions to explain the twists and turns of his own progress. . . . This masterly work is clearly a 'must' for all those who are interested in the long and eventful reign of the K'ang-hsi Emperor, which . . . still remains one of the most fascinating and rewarding periods in Chinese history."—C.R. Boxer, Journal of Asian History "A significant portrait of a family, a society, and part of an age."—Wang Gungwu, Journal of Asian Studies "[A] remarkably fine history of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Chinese social and political institutions. . . . Rewarding as well as delightful reading."—E-tu Zen Sun, Journal of the American Oriental Society "A complex, intelligent work. . . . What it meant to be textile commissioner, salt censor, imperial host, imperial informant, general member of the upper class—all of this, in all its industrial, financial, administrative, and cultural implications—comes to life."—Joseph R. Levenson, American Historical Review

Ts'ao Yin and the Kang-Hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci

Professionals & Academics

Faber and Faber

China is one of the great question marks on the world stage as we approach the third millennium. No longer a sleeping giant, neither is China a stable ally of the West. Economically it is an emerging powerhouse, and politically it is precariously balanced between the free market and military dictatorship. There could be no better time to try to understand China's history--the distance it has traveled, and where it may be going from here--than today. The Chinese Century tells the story in over two hundred and fifty rare, eloquent photographs that have been chosen from archives, libraries, and private collections throughout China, Taiwan, and the West. Many of the photographs have never been seen outside China. Like a time machine, they let us see historical events that for most of us have existed until now only in words: the lives of the rural peasants and the privileged elite from the time of the Qing dynasty to the People's Republic, the opulence and squalor that the European colonial powers brought to China in their concession areas, the cities within Chinese cities that were inhabited exclusively by Europeans. Here are the rare photos of the Boxer Rebellion and the Rape of Nanking, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. There are quirky moments, as well, such as American soldiers during the Second World War eating their K rations with chopsticks, and private photographs of Mao Zedong covered in river mud after a leisurely swim. The photographs are paired with a stunning historical text by one of the West's most respected China scholars, Jonathan D. Spence, writing here for the first time with his wife, Annping Chin. The narrative traces the nation's disintegration into civil and world war, Communist revolution, and its slow reemergence as a military and economic superpower. Focusing on the lives of ordinary Chinese as well as on the towering figures such as Chiang Kai-shek and Meo Zedong, Spence weaves an intricate and fascinating social, political, and military history.

The Chinese Century: A Photographic History of the Last Hundred Years

Arts & Photography

UK Endeavor Group

Annping Chin

Photography & Video

Random House]

[This is Part 1 of a 2-part Audiobook CASSETTE Library Edition in vinyl case.] [Cassette Edition --Part 1-- contains 14 cassettes]  [Read by Frederick Davidson] *A 1990 New York Times Book Review Book of the Year    The history of China is as rich and strange as that of any country on earth. Yet for many, China's history remains unknown, or known only through the stylized images that generations in the West have cherished or reviled as truth.   With his command of character and event -- the product of thirty years of research and reflection in the field -- Spence dispels those myths in a powerful narrative. Over four centuries of Chinese history, from the waning days of the once-glorious Ming Dynasty to Deng Xiaoping's bloody suppression of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, Spence fashions the astonishing story of the effort to achieve a modern China. Through the ideas and emotions of its reformist Confucian scholars, its poets, novelists, artists, and visionary students, we see one of the world's oldest cultures struggling to define itself as Chinese and modern.

The Search for Modern China (Part 1 of 2)

History

Asia

Blackstone Audio,Inc.

[This is Part 2 of a 2-part Audiobook CASSETTE Library Edition in vinyl case.] [Cassette Edition - Part 2 - contains 13 cassettes] [Read by Frederick Davidson] *A 1990 New York Times Book Review Book of the Year   The history of China is as rich and strange as that of any country on earth. Yet for many, China's history remains unknown, or known only through the stylized images that generations in the West have cherished or reviled as truth.  With his command of character and event -- the product of thirty years of research and reflection in the field -- Spence dispels those myths in a powerful narrative. Over four centuries of Chinese history, from the waning days of the once-glorious Ming Dynasty to Deng Xiaoping's bloody suppression of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, Spence fashions the astonishing story of the effort to achieve a modern China. Through the ideas and emotions of its reformist Confucian scholars, its poets, novelists, artists, and visionary students, we see one of the world's oldest cultures struggling to define itself as Chinese and modern.

The Search for Modern China (Part 2 of 2)

The Search for Modern China

In 1577, the Jesuit Priest Matteo Ricci set out from Italy to bring Christian faith and Western thought to Ming dynasty China. To capture the complex emotional and religious drama of Ricci's extraordinary life, Jonathan Spence relates his subject's experiences with several images that Ricci himself createdfour images derived from the events in the Bible and others from a book on the art of memory that Ricci wrote in Chinese and circulated among members of the Ming dynasty elite. A rich and compelling narrative about a fascinating life, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci is also a significant work of global history, juxtaposing the world of Counter-Reformation Europe with that of Ming China.

The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (Chinese Edition)

Guangxi Normal University Press

Em Busca da China Moderna

Companhia das Letras

Ts'ao Yin and the K'Ang-Hsi Emperor (Chinese Edition)

Shi Bao Chu Ban/Tsai Fong Books

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Books by JONATHAN D. SPENCE