The Mongol Takeover in the 1270’s changed the course of Chinese history. The Confucian empire–a millennium and a half in the making–was suddenly thrust under foreign occupation. What China had been before its reunification as the Yuan dynasty in 1279 was no longer what it would be in the future. Four centuries later, another wave Read more
The Ming dynasty (l368-l644), a period of commercial expansion and cultural innovation, fashioned the relationship between the present-day state and society in China. In this unique collection of reworked and illustrated essays, one of the leading scholars of Chinese history re-examines this relationship and argues that, contrary to previous scholarship, which emphasized the heavy hand Read more
The Ming dynasty, the last great imperial house before the Manchu conquest in 1644, ruled China for nearly three centuries. During that time, China, not Europe, was the center of the world: the European voyages of exploration were searching not just for new lands but also for new trade routes to the Far East. in Read more