Ways with Words presents interpretive essays by scholars from different disciplines on seven core, premodern classical Chinese texts. The remarkable diversity of these works--drawn from literature, philosophy, religion, and art history--challenges the presumption of a monolithic Chinese tradition that has been promoted by scholars and popular culture alike, both in China and the West.

The texts themselves include a poem from the Classic of Poetry compiled in the sixth century b.c.e.; passages from Mencius and Zhuangzi; the Heart Sutra; a poem by Du...

This volume of The Cambridge History of China considers the political, military, social, and economic developments of the Ch'ing empire to 1800. The period begins with the end of the resurgent Ming dynasty, covered in Volumes 7 and 8, and ends with the beginning of the collapse of the imperial system in the nineteenth century, described in Volume 10. Ten chapters elucidate the complexities of the dynamic interactions between emperors and their servitors, Manchus and non-Manchu populations, various elite groups, competing regional interests, merchant networks and agricultural producers, and...