China Books

A history book that you can't put down? One that you want to read again and again? This is that and more. So well written and without judgements, it manages to evoke emotions and makes history live. This is an excellent book, with amazing pictures.

The Dragon Empress Dowager of China.There are pictures of her, her court her time as well as eunuchs.There are some rare pictures, that one does not normally see in other books.If you are interested in reading about this strange person and like who she was, or fascinated by her time and history read this book.

Marina Warner made her reputation with this book, a lavishly illustrated history of the Empress Dowager and the world she knew. It is wonderfully well written and succinct. Swift moving enough for a 12 year old, but the history it told was so thorough and so accurate that I was able to come back to the book ten years later, having studied the Qin and Ming in college, and marvel at how much truth she had put in so few pages.

Neither a deep work of scholarship nor a startling revision, this smooth and balanced study puts Tz'u-Hsi in context, explaining how she shaped (and failed to shape) the world around her. The lavish pictures push this book close to a coffe table work, but the whole is just the sort of thing to excite someone just getting interested in history, or in China.
I don't know what Marina Warner thinks of her early work, thirty years on. I think it a job well done.

This book is actually several stories about the Dream-of-Jade Cat and the Emperor. There are beautiful illustrations and the stories good, this book is rated for ages 9 - 12 and I agree.

The stories are:
How Dream of Jade Looked at the Emperor
How the Dream-of-Jade Cured the Emperor
How the Dream-of-Jade Made the Emperor Laugh
How the Dream-of-Jade Chose a Gift
How Dream-of-Jade Wrote the Law

Come laugh with me and allow an Imperial Feline to draw back the veil of Time that obscures Imperishable Truths. You doubtless know Lloyd Alexander as a prolific writer & author of medieval fantasies. In "Dream-of-Jade" his wonder-filled stories tell us about ancient China and Emperor Kwan-Yu. "Jade" is the cat who stole his affections.

The author dedicated his book to "my dear cats who told me these tales." Fables can be enjoyed 'time and again' - - these were first published in CRICKET magazine in 1976. We learn how historical events were clarified by the wisdom of "Jade": how she cured the emperor, wrote the Law, and most importantly made the emperor laugh. Her beautiful green eyes & white fur is realistically portrayed through the artistry of D. Brent Burkett. He, as well as the cat, get in a few 'swipes' at pompous know-it-all bureaucrats. Some of the tongue-in-cheek humor may be lost on the youngest listeners but they will love the highly stylized speech with "important" words, and the rhythm of complicated 'titles' - such as this on page 36: "the Glittering Repository of Highly Valuable Objects."

If we listen attentively as any cat lover should, we will realize there are often lessons for adults to be found in children's picture books. Reviewer mcHAIKU suggests that you allow yourself to be hypnotized by "Dream-of-Jade."

Dream-of-Jade is a fabulous and fantastic story that emphasizes kindness, generosity, diplomacy, and common sense. The setting is beautiful, the characters are delightful, and nestled throughout the stories are bits of humor, pieces of irony, and the occasional new vocabulary word. Mr. Alexander's book is smart and charming, and as good a read for adults as it is for children. As an added bonus, the artwork, while more impressionistic than many children's books, adds to the flavor of the story quite well, providing a detailed enough view of events that one can see them while not detracting from the reader's eager imaginings.

My friend give me this book as a birthday gift to teas me. She didn't know that my father collect some of it's kind for his literature studies (seriously) since fifty years ago till he passed away seven years ago. I've been reading this kind of pictures and books in my father's lab located at his University in Taipei since I was little. The contents are erotic but artful,cuturing and healthy. The printing of this book is very good. It's a very sophisticated book. It's great for your bed- room collection and art collection. It's the best...

When reading the introductions and admiring the illustrations i felt i was before art so wise and so deep i felt happy. Very simple and very true. Reading this won't make you want to run away from it but rather takes you inside the scenes. You certainly want to be part of the escenarios. The tenderness and passion of chinese erotic art has quite a different flavor from the more agressive, macho-like of the japanese. They make a good combination, though. See and enjoy.

This is a wonderful book. It's coffee-table sized, allowing reproductions large enough to show their many details. Every image is beautifully printed, with lush, strong color. The examples cover a variety of styles. Most of them are paintings on paper or silk, though a few ceramics and other works appear. Notes are sketchy, but most of the images seem to date from the 17th or 18th century forward.

Across the whole period covered, a few things stand out. First is the whole tone of the works: they all depict affection between the players. Some of the pictures show an illicit love, or a senior wife unhappy at attention given to a concubine. None of scenes depict coercion or aggression, however. They are all about people happy together, or who were happy until found out. The second is the wide ranges of practices. Most scenes depict coition, in numerous, often improbable poses. There are also repeated themes of caresses, genital kissing, toys, multiple players or helpers, and same-sex couples. Although the male usually held the dominant position, nearly every practice was practiced for him and her both, by him and her both.

The paintings usually display intricate detail in the surroundings, to invoke rich furnishings, fine clothes (often discarded), or outdoor scenes. Most of the reproductions here are large enough for even fine detail to be visible. In fact, the relatively few small pictures became frustrating, since it was harder to read the finer marks in the pictures.

Text is very helpful. It often explains fine points that I might not have understood otherwise. It also contains extracts from stories and poems about physical love, and the first section skims nearly two thousand years of Chinese history. I found that helpful for placing the pictures and passages shown in a larger historical context. Given its generally useful content, I found it nearly maddening that so few of the comments told when, where, or by what artist any picture was created. Just a few sentences more per page would have made a huge difference.

There's a lot to say about the images, the culture behind them, and the historical shifts in surroundings, practices, and visual style. I'll let you see that for yourself, though. This book really isn't about the text, it's about the pictures.

//wiredweird

This book stands out as a breath of fresh air compared to many other very well written books about families in China's recent history. It is a saga of generations of scholars and how they lived, struggled, and persevered. The book is a memoir, an epic story, an autobiography, and a biography of the author's father, a leading scholar of international law who returned to China at the dawn of the new communist China upon completing his Ph.D. in the US.

The book was inspired by poems collected by the author's father that were written for him by his father. The author depicts the stories of each family member spanning three generations. Returning to their roots and passing along deep understanding and appreciation were the themes that played out in each generation of the family and epitomized by the title of the book. Each story is painted in vivid color with a genuine and unpolished brush. I felt that I was not reading a book; rather, I was living their lives with them through the ups and downs. I felt their pain and joy, and her family became mine. Even though I grew up in China in a similar period as the author did, I never got to know China in this kind of intimate way until I read this book. I thank the author for giving me this special gift.

Woven in the fabric of each story are beautiful tales full of cultural wisdom that are uniquely Chinese. "The Bridge of Knowing Fish" and "the Story of Tui-Qiao" are just two examples. Reading this book is a culturally enriching experience for Chinese or westerners alike.

Standing straight with honesty and pride is the image that I see from this beautiful family. Their love and support for each other endured and strengthened them through the darkest period in China's history. Injustice, humiliation, loss of loved ones, and suppression--none of these ever shook their faith, dignity, integrity and a sense of destiny.

Readers of this book also gain a special insight into the country of China today. Through the window of this family, I feel that one can draw an understanding of where the strength of the country comes from.

I could not put the book down, and at the same time, I did not want to finish reading the book too soon. This is a rare find that I am glad I did not miss. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in China in general; or who would like to learn Chinese contemporary history, sociology, anthropology, family structure, and women's studies. No matter what the reason, you will come away richer in mind and stronger in spirit.

This is a great autobiography. True and original!
Different from the books of the genre that are focused on the last fifty years in China and written by the people from the "red upper class," so to speak, this book is about the life of the people who were powerless and more likely to be the targets of the political movements happened so frequently in China during that period due to their family background.

With her love, the author told us an amazing family story of three generations.
Her family members were highly educated in both Chinese and Western cultures. Her grandparents would have lived a comfortable life if China had not been rifted with warfare in the 1930s and the early 1940s. The ruthless, hostile political circumstances in the last century in China destroyed their good life and filled their life with frustrations. They were not characteristically strong people, except the author's maternal grandfather, but they courageously maintained their belief in life and in the goodness of human nature, even after the loved ones' deaths. Even under heavy political pressures, they never stopped loving each other, as well as others.

Writing her story mainly by portraying the family members without strictly following major events chronologically, the author seemed making a photo album for her loved ones. In China, under "red terror" some people were forced to denounce their elders and their friends by breaking off their relationship with them. It's also a common practice during that period to destroy their family albums and old pictures. Only when one keeps this in mind, can he understand how important this album created by this book is to her family and how important the similar books are in general in terms of searching an untold history.

In many places, the author showed us Romanized Chinese words and expressions followed by rich, vivid explanations. She also told us many well-known, moving Chinese stories in this book. All these make this book very helpful to Westerners in studying and understanding Chinese language, culture, and history.

A book that is very well written, interesting, true and unique!

Through its vivid, detailed and truthful descriptions, the book let me relive that part of history in China as an ordinary Chinese who had a similar background and stimulated tremendous emotional resonance in me. The book truthfully recorded and lively depicted what an ordinary intellectual family had been through in the past century, especially in the past 50 years. A part of Chinese history that is too important to forget and so important to China's future development.

Unlike many books of this kind that focused on upper class Chinese and their political or personal secrets, this book focused on how ordinary Chinese lived through that part of history with its many vivid, detailed and humorous stories, happy and sad. Therefore, this book can bring you much closer to the real life of Chinese and make you understand China and Chinese people much better.

Another uniqueness of the book is that it's very rich in cultural contents. The stories it tells were richly supported by many cultural backgrounds and descriptions. It's a good book for non-Chinese readers to understand Chinese social and cultural backgrounds and to learn Chinese culture.

I hail the author for her unique and creative efforts in writing the book and strongly recommend it to readers, Chinese or non-Chinese.

As a non-specialist, I found this a very readable journey through ancient Chinese philosophy: from the Analects to Xunzi via the Daoists, following the thread of wu-wei or comparable metaphors of relaxed states. I found this book comparable in scope and quality to Chad Hansen's "Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought", although Edward Slingerland does not define himself as a Daoist. His use of the new field of "conceptual metaphor" is remarkable: it says that the basic metaphors in various cultures arise from the body and its movements; like walking, moving (effortlessly, on a Way...) or through simple actions of daily life, like filling a container with water, that triggers the metaphor of the true Self as a container, that is filled with an artificial social self of desires (ego) that to a Daoist must be emptied to allow the Dao to fill the true Self. Incidentally, this also could provide a solid basis for C.G. Jung's cross-cultural archetypes, that are in fact such metaphors; I'm thinking of his studies of metaphors in the I Ching for example (although E. Slingerland does not discuss Jung in his book.)

[We've been trying for 4 months to get Amazon to update the book description (which is several years out of date), to no avail, so direct action (as opposed to effortless action) seemed called for. Below is the actual book jacket description and back cover blurbs. The automated system forced me to rate the book in order to post this, so please ignore the 5 stars....]

This book presents a systematic account of the role of the personal spiritual ideal of wu-wei-literally "no doing," but better rendered as "effortless action"-in early Chinese thought. Edward Slingerland's analysis shows that wu-wei represents the most general of a set of conceptual metaphors having to do with a state of effortless ease and unself-consciousness. This concept of effortlessness, he contends, serves as a common ideal for both Daoist and Confucian thinkers. He also argues that this concept contains within itself a conceptual tension that motivates the development of early Chinese thought: the so-called "paradox of wu-wei" or the question of how one can consciously "try not to try."

Methodologically, this book represents a preliminary attempt to apply the contemporary theory of conceptual metaphor to the study of early Chinese thought. Although the focus is upon early China, both the subject matter and methodology have wider implications. The subject of wu-wei is relevant to anyone interested in later East Asian religious thought or in the so-called "virtue-ethics" tradition in the West. Moreover, the technique of conceptual metaphor analysis-along with the principle of "embodied realism" upon which it is based-provides an exciting new theoretical framework and methodological tool for the study of comparative thought, comparative religion, intellectual history, and even the humanities in general. Part of the purpose of this work is thus to help introduce scholars in the humanities and social sciences to this methodology, and provide an example of how it may be applied to a particular sub-field.

"Slingerland shows that wu-wei is a much richer and more pervasive notion than anyone has ever imagined. His work will convince even the most entrenched skeptic that it is an important and often neglected concern of just about every major religious thinker in early China." -Philip J. Ivanhoe, author of Confucian Moral Self Cultivation and Ethics in the Confucian Tradition

"Edward Slingerland is one of a group of exciting and creative young scholars revolutionizing the study of Chinese history, culture, and religion by applying the recently developed tools of cognitive analysis, especially conceptual metaphor analysis. Effortless Action is a remarkable work that explores the meaning of the crucial concept of wu-wei in a depth never before achievable, showing how Chinese metaphorical thought forms a nexus around this most central of ideas. If you care about China, about its culture, history, and religion, you will find this book extremely enlightening. And if you are a humanist seeking a deeper understanding of culture and history, this book will open up new worlds to you." -George Lakoff, Professor of Linguistics, UC Berkeley

Slingerland is one of several scholars (R. T. Ames, S. Cook, PJ Ivanhoe, E. Molgaard, J. Paper, V. Mair among others) reinvigorating Western scholarship on early Chinese thought. Readers of New Age interpretations steer aware from genuine scholarship, but perhaps they - and other general readers - should take a look at this book as a pathway to expertise on the field. The early texts in question, such as Kongzi's (Confucius') "Analects" and the Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) are hard to read and interepret. One reason that Slingerland manages to make them accessible is his focus on their central (spiritual) metaphors. As he argues, there is much that is universal in the structure of metaphors from any time or place. As an overview from a spiritual perspective, I strongly recommend this well-organized, thoughtful book.

This book about a little boy who befriends the grouchy imperial elephant is one of the best children's stories I have ever read. The story line is simple, yet conveys a lot of messages, i.e. how Sing Lo develops empathy for the elephant's situation, how giving can be more fulfilling than receiving, how we all go to sleep more easily when we are well taken care of, etc. What a wonderfully rich book!
The illustrations in this book are absolutely exquisit. You just don't get tired at looking at them.
I have read this book many times to my sons. However, when this book was read to a group of us by another adult, I discovered so many new things I had not seen before. This is a must have for every child's library.

My daughter received this beautiful book as a gift and we enjoy reading it again and again.
The story tells of a wealthy, sometimes seemingly selfish, young boy who rather unselfishly reaches out to the emporer's elephant who has not slept since the death of his beloved master. The little boy reacts lovingly and works diligently to ensure care and rest for the sad animal.
The art is bold and each page is a museum-goer's dream. The pictures jump off of the pages and work exquisitely with the text.
I cannot do this book justice, I know. Just find and read it to your children!

Sun washed yet brilliant the unique illustrations of South African artist Jude Daly enhance this story of how a young boy learns to be helpful.

Sing Lo is the son of one of the wealthiest merchants in Peking. He's a rather spoiled child who has been cosseted since birth. One day during an outing in his rickshaw Sing Lo becomes bored, and asks his driver, Li, what might be the greatest sight of all. Upon learning that this extraordinary sight might be the Imperial Elephant, Sing Lo determines that is precisely what he wishes to see.

Cautioned by Li that the animal is reputed to be bad tempered since the death of the Emperor, Sing Lo decides to take him a gift of buns "glazed with honey and sprinkled with poppy seeds." When Sing Lo delivers them he learns that the elephant hasn't slept since the Emperor died.

What can Sing Lo possibly do to bring rest to the unhappy animal, and is he willing to expend time and energy to bring comfort to another?

This story, which is based on a bedtime tale told to the author by her father, is as relevant today as it was years ago.

- Gail Cooke

I bought this book to read with my daughter before we went on vacation to China and actually saw the Terra Cotta Warriors. I doesn't come close to showing how phenomenal they really are but the history is wonderful and now it's a great reminder of a wonderful trip.

Rich with exciting historical details, The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China by Jane O'Connor offers a well-researched book that tantalizes the reader with tales of a poisoned King, a camouflaged dead body, and a booby-trapped tomb. The targeted audience of ages 9-12 will thrill with the adventure while simultaneously profiting from their newfound knowledge of China's first Emperor, Qin Shihuang, and his war and burial customs. Heavily strewn with color photographs, computer images, maps, drawings, and charts, the book easily captures interest and successfully holds attention with its succinct wording and short chapters that directly complement the images.
Jane O'Connor's career spanning roles as editor-at-large, president of mass market children's books at Penguin, and prolific author is crowned by her most recent gem, The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China. Realizing that no children's books had thoroughly documented the world wonder discovered in China, O'Connor successfully fills the void. This book is a must for any library!
The only negative aspect is that the book fails to be part of a larger history series since once the book is read, the reader will want to read more. The detailed bibliography and author's note provide a scope for further reading on the Terracotta Warriors, but readers will long to learn the same concise and tantalizing information on other subjects as well! Hopefully, Jane O'Connor will follow with more books to engage children and adults since The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China masterfully explores its subject.

While on vacation in China, Jane O'Connor visited the thousands of life-sized terracotta warrior statues discovered near the tomb on an emperor in northern China. She was inspired to find out more about both the army of ghostly gray warriors and the man who had ordered their creation. But as O'Connor read everything available about the first emperor and his buried army she discovered that a book on the subject had not yet been written for children. "The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China" rectifies that mistake.

In March 1974 three farmers digging a well near the city of Xian in Lintong County of the People's Republic of China, discovered the clay head of a "pottery man." Neither the farmers nor the archaeologists who arrived to investigate the figure had ever seen anything similar to the life-like figure, and where astounded to discover dozens, and then hundreds and finally thousands of these terracotta figures. When the excavation was done, an army of 7,500 soldiers and horses has been uncovered (so far), after being buried for more than 2,200 years. The life-size figures weighed as much as four hundred pounds each and wore knee-length robes, armor made from small iron "fish scales," and elaborate topknot hairdos (the low-ranking infantrymen did not wear armor). The figures stand at attention and archaeologists also found the hundreds of real bronze swords, daggers, battle-axes, and arrowheads, these silent warriors were carrying.

After sharing the story of the discovery of the figures, O'Connor tells the story of Qin Shihuang, the divine Son of Heaven, who was the first emperor or China. Qin was a paranoid tyrant, and fearing that grave robbers would loot the treasures in his tomb after he died. O'Connor talks about the measures Qin took to protect his final resting place, which included the terracotta figures, stationed in underground trenches, less than a mile from the tomb. The details about the figures, as to why they do not wear helmets or shields and why they are facing east, are quite interesting. There is logic to their arrangement that O'Connor is able to explain, a well as the difference between the 350 chariot horses and the more than 100 cavalry horses. There are more than forty full-color photographs in the book, which help to distinguish between the different types of warriors. The only disappointment here is that there are not more such photographs.

One of the most amazing things about the figures is that of the two thousand unearthed at the time O'Connor's book was published, no two had been discovered to be the same. The figures represent different ages, different parts of China, and even different temperaments. A colored computer image shows how one of the figures would have looked originally when it was painted. Another fascinating section has to do with modern artisans making replicas, following the techniques of 2,200 years ago, to help archeologists understand how the original figures were created. The final chapters of the book are devoted to what it was like inside the Emperor's tomb, where the body may be wearing a jade funeral suit (the government has no intention of actually opening the tomb and looking, but other tombs have been opened in the past to five us some ideas), and Qin's legacy, which is mainly the first Great Wall of China that he had made with a workforce of half a million slave laborers working for a dozen years. However, it would be Qin's silent army that is probably most responsible for what immortality the first emperor possesses today. Seeing them in person would be an unforgettable experience, and O'Connor's book does an excellent job of making that impression on her readers, young and old alike.

This book is simply amazing! It has virtually all the important information you will need to know on Mongolia and its history. I find it comes in handy whenever I need it and would recommend whoever interested in this part of the world buy a copy.

this is a MUST HAVE book .... great to refer to as you plow through Mongolian Travel and Adventure Books..... I'm thrilled to own it! Glad it was 'finally' published!

This is a gem of historical history of the all of the Mongols, when I mean all, I mean all - Western, Eastern, Southern, and Northern tribes from early times to the present. The book is organized alphabetically and references are made so the reader can obtain further information after each topic.

Kudos to C. Atwood in putting this together!

I would recommend this for all Mongols and non-Mongols to crasp the impact of The Mongol Empire!

If you're Mongol, you may even pick up some knowlege about your own tribal lineage.

More than any other known source, this series of essays (including the other two companion volumes) have probably done the most to put Zen 'on the map' - in the Western world. In some quarters - at least, it has become fashionable to regard D.T. Suzuki as 'passe' - a bridge builder, whose work has now reached its 'sell-by' date. While I can see why some people might feel that way - if training with a Roshi, or tired of 'reading too much' - Suzuki's 'essays' continue to have relevance for people making their first dip into the world of Zen.

In one sense, you could say that Suzuki wants to say too much, and the 'purists' may fault him for it. But he was good at his job - and knew exactly how to write about such things for a Western audience, saying enough to entice them and whet their appetite, then drop them in at the deep end! His way of doing this was lively and engaging. Suzuki was a good communicator (he had an American wife, which certainly helped. Beatrice Lane Suzuki was an accomplished student of Buddhism in her own right) - and, in some respects, Suzuki was more successful than some of the roshis teaching in the West. He wasn't trying to sell you an institution, but pointing to the 'treasure house' we must all find, for ourselves.

One thing is worth noting about Suzuki's 'essays.' For the most part, the anecdotes he has presented were taken from the T'ang masters in the Dentoroku (Chuan Teng Lu). You get a pretty fair spread of teaching-examples, and they are not all from masters in the Rinzai (Lin-chi) lineage. In the T'ang, there was no such sharp division between the Zen schools and in that sense, Suzuki's account has a freshness about it.

Suzuki will not bog you down with laboured academic digressions. He was rather slap-dash about footnotes - and as such, you get the very 'marrow' of Zen teaching. Suzuki had his foibles - but, he remains the 'grand old man of Zen' who whetted our appetite. These essays have life in them yet! Digest Suzuki. You wont regret it!

Suzuki's works offer a clear insight look at the often misunderstood world of zen. Suzuki gives the reader the ability to understand zen, rather than dictating what zen is. This work would be of benefit to any one wishing to see if zen is 'right' for them

Ok I don't know what en is but I love this book! You can't talk about Zen without talking about Suzuki. The man was responsible for bringing East to West. In all my many spins I have never been able to find someone who can describe an undescribable thing like Zen better than Suzuki. In terms of quality this book is definatly three pounds of flax.

As a Hong Kong Chinese who just moved to the US, I'd say most of the recipes are just like what I had back in Hong Kong, with the exception of the dishes that are "American Chinese". This book was targeted for US readers, so the ingredients and instructions are more in line with Americans. While you may get more authentic ingredients if you can visit Asian markets, say Chinese cooking wine instead of dry Sherry as suggested on the recipes. The details that the author went into are also remarkable.

This book is loaded with outstanding recipe after outstanding recipe (the cover claims it has 243). Many of these recipes are fairly complex to make, but they come out unbelievably tasty. This is the only collection of Chinese recipes I've ever seen that match the taste of similar dishes in the better Chinese restaurants.

Although I have found other books which are nearly as good, this one has been my favorite for several years. The recipes inside mainly have a southern Chinese cooking style and require a fair amount of preparation time (at least if you follow the recipes to the letter). However, I have yet to find a recipe which did not end up in a delicious meal.

Like most good Chinese recipe books, the initial sections describe Chinese ingredients (this one lacks pictures) and food preparation techniques (this book contains very nice photo illustrations).

The subsequent chapters are organized by entree type (poultry, beef, etc.). Each recipe has a cooking difficulty rating, number served, total preparation/cooking time, and well organized ingredient lists and preparation/cooking instructions.

Although this book has been out of print for over five years, it's still available used.