An internationally recognized authority on Chinese history and a leading innovator in its telling, Cho-yun Hsu constructs an original portrait of Chinese culture. Unlike most historians, Hsu resists centering his narrative on China's political evolution, focusing instead on the country's cultural sphere and its encounters with successive waves of globalization. Beginning long before China's written history and extending through the twentieth century, Hsu follows the content and expansion of Chinese culture, describing the daily lives of commoners, their spiritual beliefs and practices, the changing character of their social and popular thought, and their advances in material culture and technology. In addition to listing the achievements of emperors, generals, ministers, and sages, Hsu builds detailed accounts of these events and their everyday implications. Dynastic change, the rise and fall of national ambitions, and the growth and decline of institutional systems take on new significance through Hsu's careful research, which captures the multiple strands that gave rise to China's pluralistic society. Paying particular attention to influential relationships occurring outside of Chinese cultural boundaries, he demonstrates the impact of foreign influences on Chinese culture and identity and identifies similarities between China's cultural developments and those of other nations.

By:   Cho-yun Hsu
Translated by:   Michael S. Duke, Timothy D. Baker, Jr.
Imprint:   Columbia University Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 33mm,  Width: 229mm,  Spine: 152mm
Weight:   454g
ISBN:  

9780231159210

ISBN 10:   0231159218
Series:   Masters of Chinese Studies
Pages:   632
Publication Date:   July 2012
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Further / Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In stock at Abbey's Bookshop
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Cho-yun Hsu is University Professor Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh. His research and teaching specializations include ancient Chinese civilizations and comparative civilizations. He earned his B.A. and M.A. from National Taiwan University and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He has authored or coauthored a number of books, including Seek the Way, Business and Professional Ethics, Exploring Interpretation in Chinese History, and Western Chou Civilization. Timothy Danforth Baker Jr. is assistant professor of history at the National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan, ROC. He earned his M.A. from National Taiwan University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University and specializes in historical geography and the metropolitan communities of the Han and Tang dynasties. Michael S. Duke is professor emeritus of Chinese and comparative literature at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Blooming and Contending: Chinese Literature in the Post Mao Era and The Iron House: A Memoir of the Chinese Democracy Movement and the Tiananmen Massacre and editor and cotranslator of Worlds of Modern Chinese Fiction: Short Stories and Novellas from the People's Republic, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

An important and original book on a permanently important topic by one of the world's leading historians of China. The writing is very lucid, often elegant, and has been beautifully translated into English. -- William C. Kirby, Director, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University China: A Cultural History is a new, comprehensive study of Chinese culture from its prehistoric origins to the present. The author, Hsu Cho-yun, is one of the world's leading scholars of comparative civilizations and Chinese history. The book serves the needs of scholars as well as students, and is well suited for survey courses. Nothing quite like it exists in the modern literature; it is especially valuable for readers interested in world/global history. -- James L. Watson, Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society and Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, Harvard University

Of the many books in English on Chinese history that appear every year seldom does one offer a unique but authentic perspective and insight. Hsu Cho-yun's magisterial China: A New Cultural History, is one those. Through a fascinating survey of the dynamics of China's changing social, economic, and cultural life and its episodic melding with other societies Hsu traces the unrivaled saga of the Chinese people from Paleolithic time to the beginning of the Peoples Republic. A tour de force! -- Jay Taylor, Author of The Generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China An important and original book on a permanently important topic by one of the world's leading historians of China. The writing is very lucid, often elegant, and has been beautifully translated into English. -- William C. Kirby, Director, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University