How do I study a subject/civilization/person?
I wanna get into chinese history
How do I study a subject/civilization/person?
I wanna get into chinese history
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"History in Three Keys" by Paul Cohen is great for the Boxer Rebellion, but I don't know any other great books for Chinese History.
Watch Mulan
Read books about them
That's literally it
Chinese History Podcast
Dynasty warriors
I'm not even gonna bother trying to come up with something stupid to say because image should be so unfathomably obvious that do so would just detract from the stupidity of your question.
Really ?
I'd rather ask a question and learn than not ask and not know what to do
Some other user recommended me "Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom" if you're looking for Taiping shit. I haven't finished it yet but it's excellent so far.
Start with Wikipedia. Seriously.
Start honestly with Wikipedia or other online sources to get a general framework of the situation. Then delve into specific topics that interest you and find books to read about them by asking around here or reading Wikipedia bibliographies
Yeah, Wikipedia is always a great place to start. Pretty much everyone here uses it as a reference, even if they try to talk shit about it.
aoe II
LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS
>How do I study?
Please tell me this is not a serious question. Are people of (presumably) my generation seriously THIS inept?
Why does no one want my doll of this character?
He's going for 0.01 plus $10 shipping on eBay.
Ending by 10 pm central.
No bids yet.
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com
Have you ever woken up at 3am feeling like you live in the wrong dynasty? HAVE I GOT THE SITE FOR YOU
China: a History, by John Keay is the best 1 volume intro.
And if you're knowledgeable about or interested in a particular area of science or technology, check out the relevant volume of Needham.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Also, checked.
John Keay is good for Imperial China, but China: A New History by John King Fairbank is better for the Republic period onwards.
which kinda begs the question of which books
>All recommendations for Chinese history are written by non-Chinese
Ray Huang is the only correct answer here
Any other Chinese books written by Chinese people?
I made the same thread a long while ago.
The Cambridge history of China, all volumes.
I would recommend Harvard University Press' series on Imperial China for a good overview of dynastic history. Keep in mind though these are fairly scholarly reads, and, as other anons suggested, I'd say read up on the general gist of things before starting the book on the Qin and Han because Lewis makes several references to pre-imperial China without explaining.
You could also try Valerie Hansen's "The Open Empire: A History of China" Through 1800. I haven't personally read it but I have read her "The Silk Road: A New History", so I'm fairly confident that it's good. There's also a two volume history by Harold M. Tanner titled simply "China: A History" that I've heard is good.
There are a shitton of really great books about more recent Chinese history. I'd recommend the following:
The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of Modern China---Julia Lovell
Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War---Stephen R. Platt (as another user suggested)
History in the Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, Myth---Paul A. Cohen (as another user suggested)
Frank Dikötter's trilogy about the Communist Revolution, Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution
Don't really know of any good books on the Republic or Warlord Eras though
For something more specific, I'd recommend Emperor Huizong by Patricia Buckley Ebrey and The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History by Tonio Andrade.
Also if you'd rather not do it chronologically, you can just choose a specific era or dynasty that interests you and delve into that. That's what I did with the Tang and Song dynasties and later with the late Qing era. China is a history lover's dream and there's literally so much cool shit in it that it's hard to choose where to start. But read any of these things I've recommended and you can start your journey.
This. Great both for overviews and specifics.
If you have a long commute you can listen to the History of China podcast by Chris Stewart. It was inspired by and in the same format as the History of Rome podcast, he's just reached the end of the Tang Dynasty.
Ray Huang wrote in English but he received a Chinese education, making him pretty unique
This is still the most comprehensive and deepest history of China but unfortunately it uses the Wade-Giles romanization instead of the much more accurate pinyin, so reading it rapes your eyes.
But if you don't know Mandarin and are a beginner to Chinese history it probably won't bother you
Good recommendations. I need to create some type of history book graphic.
>Wade-Giles romanization
Isn't that based on some other language?
...
>No one can know anything about a civilization or culture without being from that culture
Is the history of China podcast worth listening into?
It's quite good, although personally I'm not a big fan of the narrator's voice. But then again my favorite history podcast narrator in terms of voice alone is History of Byzantium narrator so maybe I have shit taste.
You mean China History Podcast?
No, there's two podcasts. The China History Podcast by Lazlo Montgomery that jumps around interesting topics, and The History of China Podcast by Chris Stewart that follows chronological order and is explicitly modeled on the History of Rome Podcast.
Which ones is better? Or should I listen to both?
They're both good, it's just down to preference whether you prefer them to leap around a variety of topics from episode to episode, or a single historical narrative.
The History of China Podcast is still incomplete, though, he's just reached the end of the Tang Dynasty at episode 122. I personally listened to History of China Podcast up to the latest episode at the time, then started listening to China History Podcast after that.
Yeah, I mean that one. The other one that mentioned is good too.
Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom got me into Chinese history
Not as far as I'm aware
Forgotten Ally is an great introduction to China during ww2
Of course not. But one can perceive significantly different perspective to Chinese history from Western and Chinese historians. I simply prefer the latter, at least for an introduction into Chinese history
Chinese historians' perspective is colored by the dynastic cycle meme. Hence how quick they are to associate Erlitou and Erligang sites with Xia and Shang respectively even though Western scholars point out that there is really no evidence for such a link and that China at that time probably had a huge number and variety of separate settlements and cultures which don't fit neatly into traditional historiography.
Good documentary to get you more interested. About the rise and fall of the Tang Dynasty. It covers the coup of Li Shiming to the fall of the Empire while being centered around the Daming Palace in Xi'an.
Forgot to put link. Here: youtube.com
I wish I could go back in time to punch An Lushan in the face.
Mah nigguh
Go general to specific. Buy a reliable looking book that is pretty much "the big book of Chinese history" once you find topics you like buy books like "the medium book of the Tang Dynasty" and eventually even more specific books like "the small book of the Tang military" and "the tiny book of Tang horsemen."
This.