Pepper Mountain

ISBN-13: 9780710312808 / Angielski / Twarda / 2007 / 256 str.

Peter Sluglett; Konstancija Brazeniene; Albert Hourani

Opis

The political history of late Imperial/early modern China and the relationship between China's traditional political culture and the rapidly changing political environment of China today are examined through this study of the iconic figure of Yang Jisheng. Born in 1516, Yang had a brief and traumatic career as a junior official in the middle Ming dynasty, before being executed in 1555 for criticising the politics of the imperial state. Over the ensuring 450 years, a variety of constituencies within China have appropriated and deployed Yang's memory in different ways to promote their own political agendas. In recent years, as China has sought to come to grips with the ideological decline of socialism and the need for a new foundation for public morality, there has been a revival of interest in figures like Yang Jisheng, whose legacy is once again being taken up by actors on the contemporary political scene. This is an important study of the power of political myth in China, past and present.

Spis treści

EMPERORS OF THE MING AND QLNG DYNASTIES INTRODUCTION PART I LIFE AND DEATH 1 YOUTH AND EARLY CAREER 2 EXILE AND RETURN 3 TO THE EXECUTION GROUND PART II THE POSTHUMOUS CAREER 4 THE MAKING OF A MARTYR 5 TRAJECTORIES OF APPROPRIATION GLOSSARY OF CHINESE TERMS

O autorze

Dr Kenneth J. Hammond became interested in Asia as a young man during the Vietnam War era. After studying Chinese language in Beijing and undertaking further study elsewhere in China and in Boston, he entered Harvard University where he received his Master's degree in East Asian Studies and his PhD in History and East Asian Languages. Currently Associate Professor of History at New Mexico State University, he is a member of the board of directors of the Society for Ming Studies, of which he is a past president. Hammond was a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in and a visiting fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden in 2002-3.