The Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties

The Northern Song dynasty began in 960 after decades of upheaval during China's Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. At the center of its rise stood Zhao Kuangyin, Emperor Taizu of Song-a successful general confronting the problem that had destroyed so many regimes before his own: how do you build a stable dynasty when powerful generals are accustomed to making and unmaking emperors?The Northern Song Dynasty: A History of China - Part One follows the dynasty from Zhao Kuangyin's rise through the reigns of Emperor Taizong and Emperor Zhenzong. Along the way, it explores the struggle to reunify the former Ten Kingdoms, the political mystery surrounding Taizu's succession, the growing power of civil officials, the contested Sixteen Prefectures, Northern Song wars with the Khitan Liao dynasty, and the history behind the famous Yang Family Generals.The story also reaches the Song-Liao confrontation that produced the Treaty of Chanyuan, with figures such as Kou Zhun and Empress Dowager Xiao, before turning to Emperor Zhenzong's Heavenly Book and the extraordinary Fengshan rites on Mount Tai.Written as accessible narrative history, the book explains complicated court politics, military institutions, succession disputes, legends, and historical controversies in clear, conversational English-keeping the human choices behind the Northern Song's early history firmly in view.

The Jin Dynasty: A History of China, PART ONE, takes you deep into the rise of the Jurchens, beginning with their earliest ancestor and the customs that shaped their world. From mysterious origins to the story of Hanpu, the man who became the Jurchens' founding figure, the book draws you into a time when small tribes struggled to survive, laying the roots of what would one day grow into a dynasty.The narrative then moves to Jingzu Wugunai, the leader remembered for uniting clans and pushing the dream of statehood. His clever strategies against the powerful Liao empire show how the Jurchens learned to navigate politics as well as war. Through patience, ambition, and shrewd judgment, he set the foundation for what later generations would build upon.You'll also meet figures like Helibo, who faced rebellion at home while trying to keep his tribe together, and watch how the Wanyan clan gradually subdued rivals in the northeast. The story of the Jurchens is never simple-it's full of betrayals, shifting alliances, and moments when everything could have collapsed. Yet against all odds, they pressed forward, until the dream of dominance began to look real.With Aguda, the Taizu, the dream of statehood finally became reality. His rise marks the beginning of the Jin dynasty, the moment when the Jurchens stepped onto the stage of world history. From there, the dynasty surged in power, breaking the Liao, and later colliding with the mighty Song.But this is not just a story of triumph. The pages also bring you close to dramatic rulers like the so-called "Mad Emperor", the ruthless Hai Ling who seized power, and the decision to move the capital to Yanjing-what we now call Beijing. These bold, and sometimes reckless, choices kept the Jin dynasty in motion and left marks on history that can still be felt today. Every chapter opens a new door, and once you step inside, you'll want to keep reading to see how far the Jurchens' ambition carried them.

This translation of the Introduction to Wang Hui¿s Rise of Modern Chinese Thought (2004) makes part of his four-volume masterwork available to English readers for the first time. A leading public intellectual in China, Wang charts the historical currents that have shaped Chinese modernity from the Song Dynasty to the present day, and along the way challenges the West to rethink some of its most basic assumptions about what it means to be modern.<BR><BR>China from Empire to Nation-State exposes oversimplifications and distortions implicit in Western critiques of Chinese history, which long held that China was culturally resistant to modernization, only able to join the community of modern nations when the Qing Empire finally collapsed in 1912. Noting that Western ideas have failed to take into account the diversity of Chinese experience, Wang recovers important strains of premodern thought. Chinese thinkers theorized politics in ways that do not line up neatly with political thought in the West¿for example, the notion of a ¿Heavenly Principle¿ that governed everything from the ordering of the cosmos to the structure of society and rationality itself. Often dismissed as evidence of imperial Chinäs irredeemably backward culture, many Neo-Confucian concepts reemerged in twentieth-century Chinese political discourse, as thinkers and activists from across the ideological spectrum appealed to ancient precedents and principles in support of their political and cultural agendas. Wang thus enables us to see how many aspects of premodern thought contributed to a distinctly Chinese vision of modernity.