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- Making Transcendents (2)
- Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China
- By Robert Ford Campany
- Finished on Apr 13, 2011
  
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Making Transcendents

Campany is without a doubt one of my favourite historians of Chinese religion, his books are really excellent with a high level of scholarship and he's interested in a lot of the same things that I am. His Divine Transcendents book is one of my top five history books of all time. His books are aimed ... (continue)

Campany is without a doubt one of my favourite historians of Chinese religion, his books are really excellent with a high level of scholarship and he's interested in a lot of the same things that I am. His Divine Transcendents book is one of my top five history books of all time. His books are aimed at a very small scholarly audience and so always quite expensive, but I've found if I'm patient I can usually end up getting a cheap(er) copy.
When I started to read this though I was a little disappointed. There was a lot of the "post-modern" vocabulary that seems to plague modern scholarship these days. A lot of discussion of "performance" and "audience" around texts. It wasn't as bad as some books, but it did put me off a bit for the first 50 pages. After that though the book got much more interesting as he did a deep textual analysis of the reception of transcendents, and people who wanted to be transcendents within Chinese society during the Han.
A lot of the material covered was the same as in Divine Transcendents but the focus had shifted from how people become transcendents to how they were perceived within the community, and how the community built up the tales surrounding them through stele, hagiography and other tales. It was interesting to see that the first premise about transcendents (that they withdrew from the community to live in isolation) was in many cases false, and that they frequently had large groups of followers, and would deliberately try and perform spectacular feats for the Emperor and the populace.
The last chapter was I think the most interesting, as Campany took two different transcendents stories, one that had been lost till 1992, and one that had been passed down and commented on for 2000 years, and compared the different success and reception of the two stories. It was an interesting look at what the society considered to be important about transcendents, what would make them stay in the public conciousness through hagiography and temples and shrines.
While I was a little disappointed in this book, when he left behind the theory of why he was doing something and just did it I found the work fascinating and a good compliment to his previous work.

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— Apr 13, 2011 | Add your feedback
- John Martin Apocalypse now (1)
- By Barbara C. Morden
- Finished on Mar 29, 2011
  
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John Martin Apocalypse now

John Martin is my favourite 19th century artist. Up until the past year it's been really hard to find anything about him. This book is a good reference of his works. It shows lots of great reproductions of his works, including some I'd not seen before. Morden puts Martin's work in historical context ... (continue)

John Martin is my favourite 19th century artist. Up until the past year it's been really hard to find anything about him. This book is a good reference of his works. It shows lots of great reproductions of his works, including some I'd not seen before. Morden puts Martin's work in historical context talking about the social and economic history of the time. However, because her work is primarily based on older biographies she seems to misinterpret a few things, at least there were quite a few of her conclusions that I found myself questioning. All told I think the Prometheans book was better about the history of the period, and indeed as a biography of Martin, but this was better talking about his painting style and had much better pictures. I think the two compliment each other quite well.

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— Mar 30, 2011 | Add your feedback
- John Martin My Autobiography (1)
- By Martin (ed) Myrone
- Finished on Feb 27, 2011
  
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John Martin My Autobiography

John Martin is quite probably my favourite English painter, but it is very difficult to find many books about it. This book has just been published this year in conjunction with the new Martin exhibition that will be at various places in the UK. This little book is mostly a reproduction of a critiqu ... (continue)

John Martin is quite probably my favourite English painter, but it is very difficult to find many books about it. This book has just been published this year in conjunction with the new Martin exhibition that will be at various places in the UK. This little book is mostly a reproduction of a critique by the Illustrated London News on Martin's painting Joshua Commanding the sun to stand still (which is used for the cover of the book) and Martin's response to this criticism in which he gives a short biography of his life to that point. It is a nice little reproduction, and includes a short essay at the begining about Martin by a curator at Tate. The book also includes black and white reproductions of The Deluge, Belshazar's feast, The last judement, another Black and white copy of Joshua, the illustrations used in the newspaper and a portrait of the artist. Considering how rare it is to find books about Martin this is a nice little one.

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— Mar 4, 2011 | Add your feedback
- The Prometheans (1)
- John Martin and the Generation That Stopped the Future
- By Max Adams
- Finished on Feb 25, 2011
  
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The Prometheans

I bought this book because I was wanting a book about John Martin and this was described as a social history of the early 19th century reflected through the lives of the Martin brothers. What this actually was was a very ecclectic history book, which occasionally mentioned the Martins, but one that ... (continue)

I bought this book because I was wanting a book about John Martin and this was described as a social history of the early 19th century reflected through the lives of the Martin brothers. What this actually was was a very ecclectic history book, which occasionally mentioned the Martins, but one that I still found interesting. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who wasn't familiar with the period, Adams jumped around so much from topic to topic and person to person that I think it would have been very confusing for a reader unfamiliar with the time. Then again, anyone who was familiar with the time would probably find little new here. As someone who studied it years ago though it was a great refresher of the people and the issues of the period. It covered inventions, politics, social and economic history.
I was a little disappointed how little there was about Martin within this book. Though I did learn some interesting things I found myself wanting to learn a lot more. What was also interesting was the accounts of his mad brother, (whose autobiography was quoted liberally - as is availble on google books).
While not quite what I was hoping for I did enjoy this book as a popular history book of the period. I'm not sure if Adams' thesis of the promethean myth as the central focus for the movers and idealists of this time period holds up, but it was an interesting device for bringing together all the people he wished to talk about. But despite all this I found myself enjoying it nonetheless.

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— Mar 1, 2011 | Add your feedback
- Doctor Who - The Brilliant Book of Doctor Who 2011 (6)
- By Gareth Roberts, Clayton Hickman, Jason Arnopp, …
- Finished on Jan 1, 2011
  
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Doctor Who - The Brilliant Book of Doctor Who 2011

I got this for Christmas and finished it last night. It's kinda the Doctor Who annual for grown-ups, or at least older children. It has no puzzles or comics, though lots of additional flavour text! It is a lot like things you find in the grown up Doctor Who magazine or the Doctor Who confidentials. ... (continue)

I got this for Christmas and finished it last night. It's kinda the Doctor Who annual for grown-ups, or at least older children. It has no puzzles or comics, though lots of additional flavour text! It is a lot like things you find in the grown up Doctor Who magazine or the Doctor Who confidentials. A selection of behind the scenes interviews with cast and crew. It also has a detailed description of all the episodes from 2011, as well as extra text. My favourite one being a hieroglyphic story about a girl whose village was wiped out by the angels, and she managed to trap the angel in a tomb using mirrors, but then she decided to stay with the angel as she felt sorry for it being all alone. There was a short story in it, but I'm afraid I must admit the story was terrible! It was a nice book to read bits of now and then, and a good memento of this series. If they do another one for 2011's episodes I will definitely by that too.

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— Jan 2, 2011 | Add your feedback

- Chinese Magical Medicine (6)
- (Arc: Asian Religions and Cultures)
- By Michel Strickmann
- Finished on Dec 30, 2010
  
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Chinese Magical Medicine

I bought this book back in May and have been waiting till I got to a far enough point in the dissertation to read it as my reward! I think it fairly safe to say that this was my favourite non-fiction book I read in 2010! While the title includes medicine, the book is much more focused on the magic s ... (continue)

I bought this book back in May and have been waiting till I got to a far enough point in the dissertation to read it as my reward! I think it fairly safe to say that this was my favourite non-fiction book I read in 2010! While the title includes medicine, the book is much more focused on the magic side of things. This book covers everything, it looks at the Taoist and Buddhist perspectives on demons, exorcism, sigils, spells, spirit posession and healing. It covers mostly the early modern period, with references from mainly the Han to the Song. But there are also some references to contemporary practices as well. It is the most comprehensive book on Chinese magic I've read, but at the same time I'm not sure I'd recommend it to someone who wasn't already familiar with the area as he doesn't spend time explaining the different types of Taoism, Buddhism and context but it is assumed that the reader knows.
The first chapter on Disease and the Taoist law covered stuff I was mostly already familiar with. The cause of sickness in Taoism being the result of sin, though it could be the sins of ones ancestors. What was most interesting were the conclusions that Strickmann drew at the end of this chapter for how Taoism blaming ancestors for troubles was an attempt to break away from the ancesteral worship.
Demonology and epidemiology looked at the representation of Buddhist, Taoist and indigeonous demons (the last part based on the works of Ko Hung).
The literature of spells takes several Buddhist and Taoist texts and offers large portions of them in translation. The texts are both spells and demonologies that are supposed to give the person who reads them control over the demons mentioned in the text, thus being able to command the demons and cure the person who is infected.
The chapter on Ensigillation was the most interesting to me as this was the chapter that had the most newest material for me. It looked at the similiarites in the Buddhist and Taoist tradition of using seals to cure people and control demons. There were seals that made you invisible so you could sneak into the women's quarters, as well as ones that cured the sick. Here were the most "magical" of claims. There was also reference to the seals being used as printing on paper, and then these copies being used for various magical purposes.
The geneology of spirit posession was very interesting as it made me interested in Japanese history for the first time. I learned that in the 12th century there was a spate of demon posession at the royal court and that many women became infected. What was interesting was that the priests were using girl mediums to cure the posession. This was exactly what the Taoist priests were doing using boy mediums in China. It made me interested to research this area more and see if anyone had done a gender analysis on this topic. This chapter also had a small failing that while it was very detailed about the Tantric Buddhist side of using mediums to cure demon posession, it did not contrast these with the thunder rites used in China. I would have loved to have seen a comparison using Davis' work on Song China, but then this book may have originally been written before that was done. But I think this is a topic someone really needs to pick up on.
The last chapter, Tantrists, Foxes and Shamans strayed a little too far from China and focused a bit too much on Japan for my tastes. It was as if once he started talking about Tantric Buddhism he found it hard to talk about anything else. Still the discussion of "shamanism" was quite interesting.
All told a wonderful book that I will be re-reading and using as reference for years.

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— Jan 2, 2011 | Add your feedback
- Lost Books of Medieval China (1)
- By Glen Dudbridge
- Finished on Dec 2, 2010
  
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Lost Books of Medieval China

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This is a little book of three lectures he gave at the British Library in 2000. The books look at the "lost" books of China. Those that appear in Imperial bibliographies but don't survive in extant copies.
In the first lecture Dudbridge examines how these books were lost, repeated destruction of th ... (continue)

This is a little book of three lectures he gave at the British Library in 2000. The books look at the "lost" books of China. Those that appear in Imperial bibliographies but don't survive in extant copies.
In the first lecture Dudbridge examines how these books were lost, repeated destruction of the Imperial library, and what the loss of these books was blamed on by the Chinese of the Song. Zheng Qiao, a Song historian and bibliographer, blamed the books not being properly classified as responsible for their destruction. His theory was that the books that did survive survived because they were had supporters who read and cherished them. One of the things that was interesting is books were described as "lost" at this time, only if they no longer existed in the Imperial library, and many many books existed outside the library, hence the governments almost continual call for books to be sent to the library to be copied and added to the Imperial collections (and that was before their library burnt down).
The next lecture looked at one specific case of a book that had not survived, Summary documents of three kingdoms, but Dudbridge showed that many of it's chapters had indeed survived being copied into part of a collected history, that had then been recopied into an encylopedia but had been left out of the standard history. He examined the material that was left out, that largely had to do with divination and an Emperor looking bad, and was able to draw conclusions about how controversial material was weeded out of the Imperial collections in the process of collation.
The third lecture examined another book, The four gentleman of Liang, that due to problems of classification had been spread among several different areas of an encylopeia and was still missing many parts.
This was a very interesting brief look at (unintentional?) censorship and collation procedures. It also explains the difficulties for historians today in finding texts that may be scattered through encylopedias and cut and changed throughout the centuries.

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— Dec 5, 2010 | Add your feedback
The art of the book in Chi…
- The art of the book in China (1)
- Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia
- Reading since Nov 28, 2010
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- Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China (4)
- The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics (Harvard East Asian Monographs)
- By Charles Hartman, Peter K. Bol, John W. Chaffee, …
- Finished on Nov 10, 2010
  
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Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China

This is an excellent collection of essays/articles about the reign of Huizong, the Emperor of Song China who ruled before the country was invaded. The articles look at a huge variety of topiccs, his interest in Taoism, his active role promoting medical education and improving the status of doctors, ... (continue)

This is an excellent collection of essays/articles about the reign of Huizong, the Emperor of Song China who ruled before the country was invaded. The articles look at a huge variety of topiccs, his interest in Taoism, his active role promoting medical education and improving the status of doctors, his use of stele to promote learning. The policies of education and reform. As well as his personal interests in the arts. The widely diverse areas covered provide a deep understanding of the political situation, while also filling in social and economic history as well. It is necessary to have a basic understanding of the period before reading this book as the author's don't take much time explaining the backgrounds but if you already have an understanding of Song history this will definitely deepen it. While focusing mainly on the Emperor himself and his ministers you still get a greater feel of life in general during this time and the different factions that were fighting for power. Definitely recommended.

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— Nov 20, 2010 | Add your feedback
- The Art of Jaime Hernandez (6)
- The Secrets of Life and Death
- By Todd Hignite
- Finished on Aug 14, 2010
  
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The Art of Jaime Hernandez

I had to buy this when I saw that it had the ad for love and rockets from 1985 which I saw then and made me want to read it! (Albeit it took me 25 years to do so). The ad is a lovely picture of (what I now know) Hopey, Maggie, Izzy and Penny in a fake police line up. This book is lovely, first off i ... (continue)

I had to buy this when I saw that it had the ad for love and rockets from 1985 which I saw then and made me want to read it! (Albeit it took me 25 years to do so). The ad is a lovely picture of (what I now know) Hopey, Maggie, Izzy and Penny in a fake police line up. This book is lovely, first off it contains the Maggie story of her going to visit Rita in her island retreat that wasn't in the reissues. While it was rather jarring to see them all in colour, it was a nice story.
The book covers some of the history of comics, and independent comics, as well as some of the history of the LA punk scene. As someone whose NOT an artist in anyway the technical descriptions in later chapters about why the art was amazing went right over my head, but I did agree that I loved it. It was strange for me to see what was the most well regarded and what wasn't. Interesting to see how "the death of speedy" is considered the height of the comic as that to me, while it does make me cry, is one of the lesser stories as it focuses much more on the men than the women, much more on the gangs than punks, and much more on the straight people than the queers. Of course writing it all out like that I guess it's kinda obvious why that's so popular!
But this is a truly gorgeous book, with lots of wonderful pictures not seen anywhere else. Sometimes I questioned which of the originals were reprinted (the Doyle story?) and really there wasn't enough pictures (or mention) of Hopey. But I still loved it and would definitely recommend it to a fan of Jamie's work.

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— Aug 15, 2010 | Add your feedback

- BOOKS IN NUMBERS (1)
- By Wilt L. Idema
- Finished on Aug 7, 2010
  
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BOOKS IN NUMBERS

This book is a collection of essays in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Harvard Yenching Library. It is a truly great look at writing and books in China and East Asia from early bronze inscriptions to digital libraries and digitisation projects on mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The first ... (continue)

This book is a collection of essays in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Harvard Yenching Library. It is a truly great look at writing and books in China and East Asia from early bronze inscriptions to digital libraries and digitisation projects on mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The first essay looks at Zhou dynasty bronze inscriptions and how one is very similar to part of the official Zhou histories, that scholars had previously thought had little to do with the actual Zhou. Puett looks at how people who wrote were originally sages, but then people who wrote later claimed not to be sages but rather to organise and comment on the knowledge of the sages, and says how this shaped the way books were written in China. It does seem that there are more commentaries than original works sometimes!
Wang talks of something I'd not been aware of previously, a woman writing a palindrome, or poem that can be read in many directions, weaving the message into brocade so her husband who left will return to her. The story is gets even more interesting as in the Tang these type of poems take on a whole astrological meaning and get caught up in the weaving maid myths and even get appropriated by Wu Zetian. It was an area I'd heard nothing about before, despite reading everything I can about women, religion, Tang dynasty and Wu Zetian. What was lacking was any sort of gender analysis of the poems/mirrors. Definitely an area for further research once I've finished my dissertation. Though once again has an interesting tie between Wu Zetian and the written word.
Lurie talked about how recent archaeological discoveries are changing the idea of writing in Japan in the 11th and 12th centuries. It was fascinating to read about all the discoveries made, as I know nothing about Japan and knowing there were so many newly discovered texts for historians was exciting.
Whitfield told the story of the Dunhuang manuscripts, nothing new or interesting here, but good for those who haven't already heard about the history of the manuscripts, the cave and IDP's task of digitising them.
Chia writes about commercial publishers if Nanjing and Jianyang. This essays is a smaller condensed version of her book and other essay. But what is new here is her work talking about the publishing done by the imperial princes. Rawski looks at the printing in the Qing dynasty in non-Han languages. One of the things that is interesting is that even in the Qing there was a strong manuscript culture alongside the print culture, particularly for non-Han language books.
Walraven talks about book culture in Korea from 1100-1900. What is interesting is how metal movable type was used in Korea from an early time and how it was useful for small print runs. Despite what would be considered "technological advances" Korea didn't seem to have the same book culture as China. The number of books produced was much smaller and they didn't have their first bookshop till the 16th century.
I must admit to skipping the next set of essays talking about more modern developments of book culture for Japan and Vietnam (as at the moment I really only have time to read things related to my dissertation) The last section looked at different digital library projects and digitisation projects, many of which are unfortunately subscription based, but I will definitely be looking at ones that are available on the web.
A good book with interesting essays by the leading scholars of the field covering many different areas of book culture in East Asia, but with an overwhelming focus on China.

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— Aug 8, 2010 | Add your feedback
- Red Wired (4)
- China's Internet Revolution
- By Sherman So
- Finished on Jul 24, 2010
  
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Red Wired

This book was aimed at managers, investors and entrepreneurs, despite being a book with a strong business theme I found it quite interesting, helpful and very easy to read. The book started with the premise that what works for the internet businesses in the US and other English speaking countries ha ... (continue)

This book was aimed at managers, investors and entrepreneurs, despite being a book with a strong business theme I found it quite interesting, helpful and very easy to read. The book started with the premise that what works for the internet businesses in the US and other English speaking countries has been shown not to work in China. It was great to read a book that didn't talk about the homogeneity of "the web" and how all these companies (Google, facebook) were doing well everywhere. It gave a really global and cultural insight into the web in China. Just published in 2010 it was very up to date.
As someone who uses Chinese websites it was great to learn the background of these sites, how they were developed, what made them different to the US sites, and how they became a success. There was also several new companies discussed that I would like to check out. The biggest flaw with this book was that it was aimed for US business people it assumed no knowledge of Chinese and so didn't include characters or urls for the companies, which I thought was a distressing oversight.
Still apart from that I did enjoy the perspective offered in this book, it showed that with the internet, one way doesn't work across all cultures (the exception being world of warcraft). The book was laid out into chapters about each of the big companies and their "products" backgrounds on how they came to be, and how they beat out the foreign competition. While not focusing on users of the internet, and the implications of that, while not once using the term "information society" the book was still able to give an impression of Chinese internet user groups, teens and 20 somethings who used cyber cafes, people who used the mobile web (73, 166-7), online gamers (156-7) high end users. I found it all interesting.
One area I would have liked to have them talked about in a bit more depth was the issues of "piracy" which were skirted around in the sections on baidu and youku. (50,51, 56, 57, 188-9).
The book ended with a comparison with the Song dynasty (225), which I loved, as the comparison between the increase of information with printing, and now with the internet, is one of the central themes of my dissertation. However, the authors totally missed that idea, instead talking of the "inventiveness" of the dynasty and their mode of governance. Still an interesting book, easy to read, that outlines a clear difference between the internet success in America and China.

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— Jul 25, 2010 | Add your feedback
- Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China (6)
- (Studies on China)
- Finished on Jul 20, 2010
  
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Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China

This book is exactly the sort of book I'm wanting my dissertation to resemble, it's a truly excellent series of essays about the social impact of printing in China from the Song to the Qing, covering different regions, different types of publications and publishers and different social groups. It's ... (continue)

This book is exactly the sort of book I'm wanting my dissertation to resemble, it's a truly excellent series of essays about the social impact of printing in China from the Song to the Qing, covering different regions, different types of publications and publishers and different social groups. It's a really interesting book, with an awful lot of footnotes I will be chasing up in the next few months.
The first chapter by Cynthia Brokaw introduces the book, and the study of the history of the book in China, and the ways it is similar and different to its western counterpart (6,7). It covers issues of technology, language, education and reading traditions, the role of government, and sources and methods. It is a great introduction to the topic.
The ascendance of the imprint in China - by Joseph McDermott. This essay was written before McDermott's book on the social impact of printing was published, and follows along similar lines to his book. He argues that printing went side by side with manuscript books until the publishing boom in the Ming. He starts by giving examples of how the boom in publishing is usually portrayed (55) but then gives other examples to counter this. It is interesting to see that the technology did not have a "revolutionary" change, but existed side by side with the traditional methods for eight centuries. (This no doubt could have implications for those who are worried that e-books will completely eliminate print). 68 and 69 discuss the decline of the imprint in the early Ming. 85 takes up the book culture in the 16th century on. McDermott also discusses the use of manuscripts in a world of imprints.
Lucille Chia's chapter, "Of three mountains street, the commercial publishers of Ming Nanjing", follows on from her book discussing Fujian publishers, using the methods developed in that study to look at a new area. Her work includes a huge table of publishers in the area (113-) and looks at the different types of books published by commercial printers, including what were the popular categories of books. Like her book concludes with possible areas for further research.
Anne Mclaren's essay "Constructing new reading publics in late Ming China" looks at the use of vernacular texts used by a broader audience. By analysing commentaries and prefaces she is able to attempt to reconstruct the type of audience such works as narrative and drama were aimed at. This essay also looks at Zhu Xi's attitude towards reading, how books should be read and for what purpose (156). She discusses (though briefly) women readers (162-163) and the lack of authors in the traditional western sense (164).
Cynthia Brokaw’s essay – “Reading the best-sellers of the nineteenth century” looked at the commercial publishers of Sibao. It was a very interesting essay showing how printing had spread to include groups not formerly integrated into the book selling market. This group was largely Hakka and a relatively isolated community. Her research was restricted by materials that had survived, but included many photographic reproductions of the books discussed. 214, translates an introduction to a book which is designed to help readers fully recognise different characters. 218, 219 focus on the nature of reading and discuss the use of prefaces and commentaries to look at the intended user of a text. 224-225 talks about the way books were used within a household and draws on the theories of Chartier.
Robert Hegel’s “Niche marketing for late imperial fiction” looks at the way fiction books were developed and marketed during the Ming and the Qing. (236-237) He talks about the physical differences in books aimed at different readers and the quality of illustrations (253).
Katherine Carlitz – “Printing as performance” looks at literati playwrights of the late Ming. She includes a section on print vs. manuscript and how plays were circulated in both formats with different purposes (283). How the works published were part of a group identity rather than that of a single author’s vision (297).
Evelyn Rawski looks at publishing in non-Han languages, in particular the Manchu documents produced by the government in the Qing. It looks at how Beijing became the centre for printing in Manchu, Mongolian and Tibetan (322-323).
Preserving the bonds of kin by Xu Xiaoman looks at how printing with wooden moveable type was used to print genealogies. This was interesting as it showed how the genealogies were made and complied, (337) the prices for printing, the use of genealogies (343), the technology of reproduction (345) and offered an alternative to the type of printing discussed so far.
The last two essays, Visual Hermeneutics and the act of turning the leaf by Anne Burkus-Chasson and Didactic illustrations in printed books by Julia Murray, looked at the physicality of illustrations in printed books, while both were interesting essays neither were particularly relevant to my own area of interest.
Overall a truly magnificent collection of essays on this topic by the leading scholars in this field. This is so far the only main work on the topic I had to borrow from the library rather than own, I will definitely be keeping my eyes out for a cheaper copy, currently it seems to be at least 50 quid on Amazon!

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— Jul 25, 2010 | Add your feedback
- The Diamond Sutra (1)
- The Story of the World's Earliest Dated Printed Book
- By Frances Wood
- Finished on Jul 10, 2010
  
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The Diamond Sutra

This book is an excellent look at the Diamond Sutra at the British Library, the oldest dated printed book. It is meant for a general audience explaining the history of the sutra, how it lay buried for a 1000 years in Dunhuang, and how it came to the British Library. It details the history of the Dun ... (continue)

This book is an excellent look at the Diamond Sutra at the British Library, the oldest dated printed book. It is meant for a general audience explaining the history of the sutra, how it lay buried for a 1000 years in Dunhuang, and how it came to the British Library. It details the history of the Dunhuang documents and their theft/acquistion by Stein and Pelliot at the begining of the 20th century.
The book also has a chapter about Buddhism and the scroll, while it is beautifully illustrated with a clear copy of the complete scroll because the binding is so tight you miss a line of text on each page, which is a great dissapointment. It also mentions the sutra that someone donated so their hard working Ox would also be reborn in the pure land!
There is also a brief look at how wood block printing was done in China (albeit from the 19th century) and then a detailed look at how the sutra was restored by the conservation department at the British Library.
An interesting look at the sutra, with lots of lovely pictures, however for those already familiar with the sutra there isn't really any new or very detailed information here.

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— Jul 12, 2010 | Add your feedback
- The Age of Confucian Rule (4)
- The Song Transformation of China
- By Dieter Kuhn
- Finished on Jul 10, 2010
  
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The Age of Confucian Rule

I must admit when I put this book on my wish list I hadn't paid very close attention. I thought it was going to be a scholarly, intellectual history particularly on the rise of neo-Confucianism in the Song dynasty. What it actually is, is a general history of the Song. The first half covers the poli ... (continue)

I must admit when I put this book on my wish list I hadn't paid very close attention. I thought it was going to be a scholarly, intellectual history particularly on the rise of neo-Confucianism in the Song dynasty. What it actually is, is a general history of the Song. The first half covers the political and military history of the dynasty (including the foreign dynasties in the North) and the second half is more of a social and economic history on different aspects of the dynasty. As such it wasn't all that useful for me, but is probably a good introduction to the dynasty, though not as interestingly written as Everyday life in China at the eve of the Mongol invasion.
There is a little about printing (40-43)and the examination system that might be useful for my dissertation, but mostly for a general description on how the examination system works (3).
There was an interesting couple of paragraphs about one of the Khitan Empresses who led warriors into battle and defied tradition instead of following her husband to the grave she tried to rule the Liao, cutting off her own hand and placing it in the tomb (23).
In the discussion of religion what seems to be the author's prejudice against Taoism shows. He dismisses Taoist religious ceremonies as "theatre" and talks only about how Confucianism and Buddhism interact in the political arena which I thought was most disappointing (118-9)
166-167 discusses the most famous Song woman poet, Li Qingzhao which I found very interesting. 234 starts an interesting look at the printing of paper currency and the related problems of its use.
This book is a good general introduction to the dynasty, it combines social and political history. But overall I found the style to be a bit dull and uninspiring. Still I think it was worth reading, and will be a good reference.

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— Jul 24, 2010 | Add your feedback