“patrick hannan”

"I've known the author circa fifty years; then, a young broad-based scientist with a good sense of humor; now, a broader-based scientist with a great sense of humor. Who better to develop an obsession with an unfunny, tantalizing, and unquantifiable topic like serendipity and produce a gem of a book... More

To win the approval of China's native elites, Qing China's new Manchu leaders developed an ambitious plan to return Confucianism to civil society by observing laborious and time-consuming mourning rituals, the touchstones of a well-ordered Confucian society. The first to do so in any language, Norma... More

This book describes how the Chinese government, between about 620 and 850, developed an official organization designed to select, process, and edit material for inclusion in official historical works eventually to be incorporated in an official history of the dynasty. The first part gives a detailed... More

Scholars have long recognised that Chinese politics changed fundamentally in 1925, when the radical nationalism of the May Thirtieth Movement took political centre stage. This book explains the connection between the beginning of the Nationalist revolution and the introduction of modern World War I ... More

The Opium Wars ushered in an era of intensive Western imperialism in China, at a time when the Ch???ing dynasty was already in decline, forcing a small number of Chinese officials to come to the realisation that China must protect itself by adopting the same military technology that had brought it n... More

This book argues that the Mongol invasion of China in the thirteenth century precipitated a lasting transformation of marriage and property laws that deprived women of their property rights and reduced their legal and economic autonomy. It describes how indigenous social change combined with foreign... More

Every general account of the development of Chinese thought makes mention of Tung Chung-shu (ca. 195 - 105 B.C.E.) as one of the pivotal philosophers of the Han (206 B.C.E. - 220 C.E.). Tung's interpretations helped establish the first state-sponsored Confucian Canon, and created an ideal of the rul... More