China's Cosmopolitan Empire (History of Imperial China)
Author:Mark Edward Lewis,Timothy Brook
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press; Reprint edition (3 April 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0674064011
ISBN-13: 978-0674064010
Product Dimensions: 15.9 x 2.5 x 23.5 cm
內容簡介
The Tang dynasty is often called China's "golden age", a period of commercial, religious, and cultural connections from Korea and Japan to the Persian Gulf, and a time of unsurpassed literary creativity. Mark Lewis captures a dynamic era in which the empire reached its greatest geographical extent under Chinese rule, painting and ceramic arts flourished, women played a major role both as rulers and in the economy, and China produced its finest lyric poets in Wang Wei, Li Bo, and Du Fu. The Chinese engaged in extensive trade on sea and land. Merchants from Inner Asia settled in the capital, while Chinese entrepreneurs set off for the wider world, the beginning of a global diaspora. The emergence of an economically and culturally dominant south that was controlled from a northern capital set a pattern for the rest of Chinese imperial history. Poems celebrated the glories of the capital, meditated on individual loneliness in its midst, and des cribed heroic young men and beautiful women who filled city streets and bars. Despite the romantic aura attached to the Tang, it was not a time of unending peace. In 756, General An Lushan led a revolt that shook the country to its core, weakening the government to such a degree that by the early tenth century, regional warlordism gripped many areas, heralding the decline of the Great Tang.
Review
"This series on China, brilliantly overseen by Timothy Brook, is a credit to Harvard University Press. Above all, it encourages us to think of China in different ways." -- Jonathan Mirsky, Literary Review, 1st November 2010
"In China's Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty, Mark Edward Lewis has done a superb job of synthesizing the scholarship on the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and rendering it into a readable account. Professor Lewis's general narrative of Tang history, chapters two and three of the book, is the best overview of Tang history in any language, and would be a good starting point for anyone interested in the dynasty...There is a large corpus of scholarship in English on Tang dynasty history and culture. China's Cosmopolitan Empire is an admirable addition to that corpus. It will undoubtedly become the standard survey in English for the foreseeable future." -- Peter Lorge, Journal of Military History, 8th January 2011
"Mark Edward Lewis has produced an impressive volume on the history of the Tang dynasty...Its greatest contribution is its integration of the latest secondary scholarship into interesting arguments about the evolution of Chinese society between the seventh and tenth centuries...This book remains an excellent place to see the latest insights into Tang history. It is a thought-provoking effort to synthesize that work and reflect on the significance of the Tang for China's history. If it inspires the next generation of students to pursue Tang history seriously, Lewis will have made a real contribution to Tang studies." --Anthony DeBlasi Journal of Asian Studies 20100501
作者簡介
Mark Edward Lewis is Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Chinese Culture at Stanford University. Timothy Brook is Professor of History and Republic of China Chair at the University of British Columbia.
我不得不承認,對於一個像我這樣,更傾嚮於從文化人類學角度理解曆史的人來說,本書的標題《世界性的帝國》立刻抓住瞭我的注意力。它暗示的不僅僅是疆域的遼闊,更是一種文化、思想和物質的跨界流通。我特彆期待看到作者如何處理“多元文化共存”這一棘手的問題。唐朝的鬍風盛行是事實,但這種“鬍化”究竟是淺層的風尚模仿,還是深層的社會結構重組?佛教、景教、祆教在唐代的發展軌跡,它們是如何被國傢意識形態吸收、改造或排斥的?如果作者能提供關於城市生活、飲食習慣、服飾變遷等微觀層麵的具體案例,來佐證宏觀的政治論斷,那麼這本書的閱讀體驗將會達到一個全新的高度。曆史不應該隻是精英階層的舞颱,普通人在帝國擴張中的角色和體驗,同樣值得被細膩地書寫齣來。
評分作為一名對東亞文明演變深感興趣的業餘曆史愛好者,我常常覺得現有的許多唐代研究,要麼過於聚焦於政治軍事的權謀鬥爭,要麼陷於文學藝術的精妙分析,卻往往忽略瞭那個時代最核心的“活的脈絡”——社會結構與日常生活的細微變遷。這本書的切入點,似乎正是要彌補這種缺失。它不像那種傳統的帝王將相傳記,而是試圖從更廣闊的社會經濟基礎上去理解唐朝何以能成為一個真正意義上的“世界性”實體。我期待它能詳細描繪齣長安城內來自不同地域、擁有不同信仰的人們是如何共存、交流、甚至衝突的,那種基於日常經驗的社會史分析,遠比抽象的製度史描述要生動得多。如果它能成功地勾勒齣商業網絡、宗教傳播、以及人口遷徙對中原王朝帶來的深刻衝擊與重塑,那麼這本書的價值就無可估量瞭。
評分從閱讀體驗的角度來看,一本厚重的學術專著往往需要極強的毅力和清晰的結構來引導讀者穿越復雜的論證迷霧。我希望這本捲冊在保持其學術嚴謹性的同時,其行文風格能夠保持一種高度的敘事張力。那種平鋪直敘、堆砌史實的寫作方式,很容易讓人在中途感到疲倦。我期待看到作者能運用精妙的過渡和富有洞察力的分析性總結,將散落的史料碎片編織成一幅連貫且引人入勝的曆史畫捲。如果能像講故事那樣,在關鍵的曆史轉摺點設置懸念,在關鍵的人物齣現時進行深刻的心理側寫,哪怕隻是對一兩位中外交流的代錶性人物進行深入挖掘,都會極大地增強作品的可讀性。一本好的曆史書,理應在提供知識的同時,也能帶來閱讀的愉悅和思想的啓發。
評分這本書的裝幀設計真的很有心思,拿到手就能感受到哈佛齣版社齣品的質感。紙張厚實,印刷清晰,尤其是那些插圖和地圖的排版,簡直就是藝術品。對於一個長期關注曆史研究的讀者來說,這種對細節的打磨是極其重要的,它能極大地提升閱讀的沉浸感。我個人非常欣賞那種既有學術深度又不失視覺美感的書籍,這本書顯然在這方麵做得非常齣色。封麵的設計也很有意境,似乎能窺見盛唐氣象的恢弘與包容,讓人在翻開之前就對即將展開的敘事充滿瞭期待。它不僅僅是一本曆史著作,更像是一件可以長期珍藏的藝術品,放在書架上也是一種視覺享受。每一次翻閱,都能發現一些之前忽略的精妙之處,這種觸感和視覺上的愉悅,是數字化閱讀永遠無法替代的體驗。好的紙質書能讓人慢下來,去真正品味文字背後的曆史厚重感,這本書無疑做到瞭這一點。
評分坦率地說,我對某些主流西方漢學界的敘事框架持有謹慎的保留態度,總覺得他們偶爾會用過於簡化的“東方主義”濾鏡去解讀復雜多變的中國曆史。因此,在閱讀這本由哈佛係列推齣的捲冊時,我特彆關注其論證的細緻度和對史料的駕馭能力。我希望它能展現齣對一手漢文文獻的紮實掌握,而非僅僅依賴二手研究的二手解讀。更重要的是,我希望看到作者在構建“世界性帝國”這一宏大命題時,能避免將唐朝的開放性簡單歸因為某種偶然的“開明”,而是能深入剖析其內在的製度彈性、邊疆政策的演變,以及與周邊非漢族政權之間那種復雜、動態的互動關係。一個真正世界性的帝國,其復雜性絕不是一兩個原因可以概括的,需要多維度、去中心化的審視,這纔是檢驗學術功力的試金石。
本站所有內容均為互聯網搜尋引擎提供的公開搜索信息,本站不存儲任何數據與內容,任何內容與數據均與本站無關,如有需要請聯繫相關搜索引擎包括但不限於百度,google,bing,sogou 等
© 2025 book.cndgn.com All Rights Reserved. 新城书站 版權所有