China’s Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty (History of Imperial China) by Mark Edward Lewis (PDF)

Description

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 described 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.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “This is an impressive survey history of the Tang dynasty, concise and accessible. China’s Cosmopolitan Empire is written so succinctly and clearly that it provides, to my knowledge, the best summary of the Tang period yet available in English. It will make an excellent source for the general student of Chinese or East Asian history.”―David L. McMullen, University of Cambridge“[A] readable introduction to the Tang Dynasty.”―J. K. Skaff, Choice“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“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“With clarity and rich details, sustained by quotes, anecdotes, poems, and visual images, Lewis brings to life the vitality of a transforming China in geography, politics, urban life, rural society, the outer world, kinship, religion, and writing, all in comparison with previous times…Lewis’s nuanced details of a changing Tang are direct challenges to the dated but still influential views of China as an unchanging Sinocentric empire, uninterested in commerce and foreign contact.”―Yihong Pan, China Review International“Lewis’ book will be of great interest and utility to general readers as well as students who are looking for a lucid overview of Tang history and culture.”―Michael R. Drompp, Journal of Asian History“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 About the Author 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.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Good

⭐The emergence of the Tang Dynasty in 618 followed the Yellow River in northern China from present-day Xian across Shaanxi’s plateau to the east, and westward through Gansu’s mountain corridor through the deserts of Xinjiang. It was a tremendous expansion that rivaled and surpassed the Han Dynasty. At its greatest extent, it reached parts of Vietnam and influenced Korea and Japan’s development.The rise was abruptly curtailed in 756 by the An Lushan rebellion in the west, which led to civil unrest and border wars until the Tang’s collapse in 907. During the decline of the empire frequent fighting with Tibetans, Uighurs and Arabs reversed Tang pre-eminence among bordering kingdoms. After this period, China’s center of gravity would shift permanently south to the Yangtze river valley.This volume of Harvard’s recent six-part history of Imperial China is authored by Mark Lewis, who also wrote the two earlier volumes on the Qin-Han and Southern-Northern dynasties. Lewis is a professor of history at Stanford University in California. The high standard of writing in the series is maintained here. His first book on the Han won a prize from the Belles-Lettres Academy of France.As with the other volumes, this is a hybrid of chronological and thematic history. After the basic narrative of the dynastic foundation, rebellion and dissolution is told, chapters on cities, countryside, family, religion, and literature follow. There is an extended look at Tang relations with the outer world. Commerce and religion on silk road routes brought conflict with Turks to the west and nomads in the north.Although written in a scholarly manner, this book may be enjoyable for a general reader. It contains enough cultural information beyond dates, places, and events to maintain interest. Compressing three centuries of civilization into three hundred pages becomes too abbreviated. I wish there were more histories of the Tang dynasty beyond the basic textbooks​. This is the best I’ve found, and it’s very good.

⭐I would actually like to give this 4.5 stars but I dont have that option!I like this series of books–there is one on early Chinese empires and on the Ching Dynasty as well. They are quite comprehensive, covering the broad contours of the empires, in this case the Tang Empire. In addition, though these are scholarly works, they are written as much as possible with the lay reader in mind. I am an academic, so I appreciate all the paraphernalia that goes along with these books, particularly the notes and bibliographies. But, I am not a China expert, so I appreciate the presentation in a fairly clear and readable format.In this volume, I do have one small criticism. I love the chapters devoted to religion, ideas and culture. But, they do, in this particular volume on the Tang, require a certain amount of pre-existing knowledge on the part of the reader. This is especially the case in the chapters on religion dealing with Buddhism and Taoism. The author tends to introduce concepts and personalities and presumes that the reader has some background knowledge. If it gets someone to go to the notes and bibliography and read more for themselves, that is great. But it may turn some people off. He writes about culture, poetry and ideas in a similar vein.I also may have a small quibble with the author’s use of evidence from the Song dynasty, the Tang successor, which he sometimes uses to illustrate events and ideas from the Tang–arguing that the origins of the Song practice is rooted in the Tang. This is a very very small criticism, however.All in all, this is a very nice, comprehensive introduction to Tang dynasty China, written for a general audience by an expert.

⭐This was the first book in the History of Imperial China series that I’ve read, and if the other volumes live up to the informative and comprehensive quality of this one, I can see this series perhaps supplanting the unwieldy Cambridge series.Mr. Lewis provides a surprisingly detailed survey of one of the most interesting Chinese dynasties in about 300 pages (plus appendices, notes and index). No small feat, considering the vast wealth of in-depth scholarly work available regarding the Tang. That is not to say, of course, that this is a merely a brief skimming of the highlights; to the contrary, Mr. Lewis gives us a wonderful grounding in the geographic and political climate before taking us deep into the streets of Chang’an and Luoyang, to the countryside of the Central Plain, or to the mountain retreats of the eremitic Tang poets. Ample citations of Tang prose and poetry, as well as cultural anecdotes, are present to give the reader a learned picture of what it meant to be a student of the ‘jinshi’ examinations, a singer in the pleasure quarter, or a court poet.This is, however, a scholarly work through and through. Well cited and referenced, the information given is well-chosen and aimed squarely at those seeking to learn about the Great Tang, as opposed to being simply entertained by its many colorful nuances. Mr. Lewis is a strong writer for this kind of book, and his prose is easy to follow and to the point. This may not be the best choice for bedtime reading, but it is accessible to all readers, especially those new to the subject.I highly recommend this book to any beginning student of Chinese imperial history, and to any reader interested in learned writing on one of the most important eras in one of the most important civilizations in the world.

⭐I liked this book. It isn’t deep, but it’s a decent introduction to one of the most exciting historical eras of all time.Mark Lewis has written several books spanning China’s history. They’re worth reading, to orient yourself for more in depth study

⭐Pool quality! Fake one!

⭐Il libro è scritto molto bene, per quanto riguarda le ricerche specifiche che stavo facendo io mi è stato d’aiuto solo in modo limitato (particolare periodo 650-705 Wu Zhao) ma se si è interessati al periodo Tang in generale (parla in minima parte anche delle dinastie Sui e Song) è sicuramente molto completo! Nel conplesso consigliato! Anche per i non madrelingua inglese, con un livello medio (circa b2)Une fois de plus pour s’instruire dans notre ex beau pays il faut connaitre la langue anglaise…Ce tome sur l’empire Tang répond bien à une analyse de l’évolution de la civilisation chinoise et assimilés “barbares”. Il ne s’agit pas vraiment d’une revue historique chronologique ou venementielle militaire mais plutôt d’une explication des étapes de cette dynastie jusqu’à sa chute. Livre sérieux mais facile à lire pour un francophone. Achat utile de toute la série pour les spécialistes sinon chaque tome se suffit à lui-même.

⭐

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