Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook

by Ebrey, Patricia Buckley

• ISBN13: 9780029087527
• ISBN10: 002908752X
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781439188392
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-05-10
• Publisher: Free Press
• More Book Details

About This Book

Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, 2nd Edition

Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, 2nd Edition, is a comprehensive and engaging textbook that delves into the rich history and culture of China. This book is a go-to resource for students and educators alike, offering a detailed exploration of Chinese civilization from its beginnings to modern times.

Who Uses It?

Primarily, this book is used by students and instructors in Chinese history courses at the college and university levels. It's also a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding the basics of Chinese culture and history, including professionals looking to refresh their knowledge or expand their understanding of Asian studies.

History and Editions

The 2nd edition of Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook has been updated to include coverage of personal documents, social records, laws, and previously ignored reports. This edition provides a complete and thorough introduction to China's history and culture, setting the standard for supplementary texts in Chinese history courses. The book has been a trusted resource since its initial publication in 1993 and continues to be a cornerstone in educational institutions.

Author and Other Works

Patricia Buckley Ebrey is the author of Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook. Professor Ebrey is Professor Emeritus of the Department of History at the University of Washington. She began studying Chinese language and history in the late 1960s and went on to earn her Ph.D. from Columbia University. Ebrey's expertise in Chinese history and culture is evident in her writing, making complex historical concepts accessible to readers.

Detailed Information

ISBNs and Formats

Hardcover: ISBN-13: 9780029087527

eTextbook: ISBN-13: 9780029087527 (The ebook for "Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, 2nd Edition" is available right here on eCampus.com!)

eTextbook: ISBN-13: 9780029087528 (The ebook for "Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, 2nd Edition" is available right here on eCampus.com!)

Loose-leaf: Not available (Please note that all formats are available for rental through eCampus.com)

Publication Details

Publisher: Free Press

Publication Date: May 10, 1993

Number of Pages: 524

Language: English

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Author Biography

Patricia Buckley Ebrey is Professor Emeritus of the Department of History at the University of Washington. She began studying Chinese language and history in the late 1960s, then went on to Columbia University where she earned her Ph.D.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition	xi	(2)
Preface to the First Edition	xiii	(2)
Contents According to Topics	xv	(4)
A Note on the Selection and Translation of Sources	xix	(1)
Map of China	xx
I. THE CLASSICAL PERIOD	1	(46)
1. Late Shang Divination Records. The questions and answers inscribed on oracle bones used to communicate with divine powers	3	(3)
2. The Metal Bound Box. A scene in which the Duke of Zhou offers his life to the ancestors in place of his nephew the king, from the Book of Documents	6	(2)
3. Hexagrams in the Book of Changes. Two passages from an ancient diviners' manual	8	(3)
4. Songs and Poems. Songs of courtship, feasting, and war, from the Book of Songs	11	(3)
5. The Battle Between Jin and Chu. Description of the strategies, jockeying for position, and boasting of a major battle, from the Zuo zhuan	14	(3)
6. Confucian Teachings. Passages from the Analects, Mencius, and Xunzi	17	(10)
7. Daoist Teachings. Passages from the Laozi and Zhuangzi	27	(5)
8. Legalist Teachings. Passages from the Book of Lord Shang and Han Feizi	32	(6)
9. Two Avengers. From the Intrigues of the Warring States	38	(4)
10. Social Rituals. The procedures to be followed when an inferior visits a superior and vice-versa, from the Book of Etiquette and Ritual	42	(5)
II. THE QIN AND HAN DYNASTIES	47	(40)
11. Penal Servitude in Qin Law. From excavated wooden-strip documents	51	(3)
12. The World Beyond China. From Sima Qian's Historical Records	54	(3)
13. Heaven, Earth, and Man. From the writings of Dong Zhongshu	57	(3)
14. The Debate on Salt and Iron. A court debate between the Legalist prime minister and the Confucian scholars about the role of the government in economic matters	60	(4)
15. The Classic of Filial Piety. A popular primer that glorifies the virtue of filial devotion	64	(5)
16. Wang Fu on Friendship and Getting Ahead. A second-century man's cynical view of how men get ahead	69	(3)
17. Women's Virtues and Vices. An exemplary biography of a model woman, the lament of a man whose wife was far from model, and a woman's admonitions to girls on how to behave	72	(5)
18. Yin and Yang in Medical Theory. The theory behind traditional medicine, from the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine	77	(3)
19. Local Cults. Three stone inscriptions describing shrines erected to honor various deities	80	(3)
20. Uprisings. Accounts of two religious leaders and the uprisings they staged	83	(4)
III. THE ERA OF DIVISION AND THE TANG DYNASTY	87	(50)
21. Ge Hong's Autobiography. By a fourth-century scholar and reluctant official	91	(6)
22. Buddhist Doctrines and Practices. Wei Shou's summary of Buddhist doctrines, hagiographic accounts of two monks, and documents found at Dunhuang showing Buddhist belief in practice	97	(8)
23. Tales of Ghosts and Demons. Three tales from a fourth-century collection	105	(4)
24. Cultural Differences Between the North and the South. Two views of the distinctions that developed during a period of political separation and non-Han domination in the North	109	(3)
25. Emperor Taizong on Effective Government. A summary of political theory, written by the second Tang emperor for his sons	112	(4)
26. The Tang Legal Code. Sections from the laws on theft and robbery and those on land and taxes	116	(4)
27. The Errors of Geomancy. An official's complaints about the profusion of theories	120	(3)
28. The Dancing Horses of Xuanzong's Court. Unusual and exotic entertainment	123	(2)
29. Family Business. Documents from Dunhuang on the sale of slaves, division of property, and household registration	125	(3)
30. The Examination System. Humorous and semihumorous anecodotes about men's efforts to pass the civil service examinations	128	(4)
31. A Pilgrim's Visit to the Five Terraces Mountains. From the diary of a Japanese monk who made a pilgrimage to one of the sacred sites of Buddhism	132	(5)
IV. THE SONG AND YUAN DYNASTIES	137	(66)
32. The Tanguts and Their Relations with the Han Chinese. Some Tangut maxims, a Tangut ruler's letter to the Song emperor, and the preface to a Chinese-Tangut glossary	139	(3)
33. Book of Rewards and Punishments. A moral tract associated with popular Daoism	142	(4)
34. Precepts of the Perfect Truth Daoist Sect. Principles of a Daoist monastic sect	146	(5)
35. Wang Anshi, Sima Guang, and Emperor Shenzong. A court debate between the leading activist and his conservative opponent and letters they wrote each other outlining their differences	151	(4)
36. Rules for the Fan Lineage's Charitable Estate. The rules by which a charitable trust was to be run for the benefit of the members of the lineage	155	(2)
37. Ancestral Rites. From a ritual manual giving the procedures to be followed	157	(7)
38. Women and the Problems They Create. Three folktale-like stories of unusual women and a sympathetic view of women's problems	164	(5)
39. Longing to Recover the North. Poems by six twelfth-century writers expressing their anguish at the loss of China's heartland	169	(3)
40. Zhu Xi's Conversations with His Disciples. Conversations between a leading neo-Confucian philosopher and his students	172	(6)
41. The Attractions of the Capital. A description of economic activity, entertainment, and amenities in the city of Hangzhou	178	(8)
42. The Mutual Responsibility System. One magistrate's instructions on how these units were to operate	186	(2)
43. On Farming. How to plant, weed, care for tools, budget time, and so on	188	(4)
44. A Mongol Governor. The biography of a Mongol who spent decades putting down rebellions and securing Mongol rule	192	(3)
45. A Schedule for Learning. Neo-Confucian rules and advice for teachers and students	195	(4)
46. A Scholar-Painter's Diary. Two weeks of social and intellectual activity	199	(4)
V. THE MING DYNASTY	203	(64)
47. Proclamations of the Hongwu Emperor. A despot's complaints about how difficult it was to get his subjects to act properly	205	(3)
48. The Dragon Boat Race. A description of the festival as performed in one place in Hunan	208	(3)
49. Village Ordinances. Sample ordinances a village could adopt	211	(2)
50. Commercial Activities. Sample contracts, an essay on merchants, and a biography of an admired one	213	(8)
51. What the Weaver Said. An artisan's view of his work	221	(2)
52. Tenants. Two contracts specifying the responsibilities of quasi-hereditary tenant-servants on one estate and reports of riots by tenants	223	(3)
53. Shi Jin the Nine-Dragoned. Episode from a novel describing the background of one outlaw	226	(12)
54. Family Instructions. Advice and rules found in a lineage genealogy	238	(7)
55. Concubines. How concubines were bought, the reminiscences of a man for a beloved concubine, and an episode from a novel depicting the ploys of a malicious concubine	245	(8)
56. Widows Loyal Unto Death. Accounts from a local history glorifying women who showed loyalty to their dead husbands by killing themselves	253	(3)
57. Two Philosophers. Letters and conversations of two important thinkers, Wang Yangming and Li Zhi	256	(7)
58. A Censor Accuses a Eunuch. A memorial to the emperor accusing the eunuch Wei Zhongxian of usurping his authority and acting tyrannically	263	(4)
VI. THE QING DYNASTY	267	(64)
59. The Yangzhou Massacre. One family's experiences, recounted in a diary	271	(9)
60. Proverbs About Heaven. Standard sayings	280	(2)
61. Taxes and Labor Service. A description of the forms in which taxes and service were assessed in one country	282	(5)
62. Permanent Property. The advice a man gave his sons concerning the importance of owning land and how to manage it	287	(5)
63. Lan Dingyuan's Casebook. Two examples of how an energetic Magistrate solved administrative and legal cases	292	(5)
64. Exhortations on Ceremony and Deference. A lecture delivered by an official in the hope of teaching villagers good behavior	297	(4)
65. Village Organization. Two records of village affairs, one about a water-use agreement, the other the creation of a fair	301	(3)
66. The Village Headman and the New Teacher. Episode from a novel about how a teacher was hired	304	(5)
67. Boat People. A local history's account of a minority group	309	(2)
68. Placards Posted in Guangzhou. Official orders to admit foreigners to the city after the Opium War and protests from local residents	311	(2)
69. Infant Protection Society. An account of one man's efforts to stem infanticide	313	(5)
70. Mid-Century Rebels. Confessions, proclamations, petitions, and descriptions of a number of different rebel groups	318	(5)
71. The Conditions and Activities of Workers. A stone inscription recording official disapproval of organizing by workers and an official report of working conditions in a water-logged mine	323	(3)
72. Genealogy Rules. The rules one lineage used in compiling its genealogy	326	(5)
VII. THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY	331	(76)
73. Liang Qichao on His Trip to America. Comments on the amazing sights in New York, and reflections on Chinese social organization	335	(6)
74. Ridding China of Bad Customs. Proposals for ways to end footbinding, suppress opium addiction, and free young girl bondservants	341	(7)
75. Rural Education. Recollections of a teacher introducing science to a rural school	348	(6)
76. My Old Home. A story showing problems of communication between upper and lower class men	354	(6)
77. The Spirit of the May Fourth Movement. Recollections of a woman who had been in middle school at the time	360	(4)
78. The Haifeng Peasant Association. How one man tried to organize peasants	364	(9)
79. The Dog-Meat General. An account of one of the more incompetent and brutal warlords	373	(5)
80. The General Strike. A magazine account of a strike in Shanghai in 1928	378	(7)
81. Funeral Processions. A description of two funeral processions with a list of the equipment used and the cost	385	(6)
82. My Children. An essay by a man with five children	391	(5)
83. The Life of Beggars. An account of the Social organization of beggars and their various techniques of earning a living	396	(5)
84. Generalissimo Jiang on National Identity. Two speeches, early and late in the War Against Japan, on China's relations with other countries and the relations of the various nationalities within China	401	(6)
VIII. THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC	407	(98)
85. The Communist Party. A speech by Liu Shaoqi on party organization and discipline	411	(5)
86. Land Reform. An episode from a novel showing peasants learning "to stand up"	416	(6)
87. Hu Feng and Mao Zedong. Letters of a leading intellectual which Mao published with his own commentary on how they demonstrated his counterrevolutionary tendencies	422	(7)
88. A New Young Man Arrives at the Organization Department. An episode from a story of the conflict between an idealistic young party member and the entrenched power structure	429	(6)
89. Peng Dehuai's Critique of the Great Leap Forward. Peng's letter to Mao offering measured criticism of his policies	435	(5)
90. Developing Agricultural Production. A newspaper account of efforts to inspire members of a production brigade to work harder	440	(2)
91. Lei Feng, Chairman Mao's Good Fighter. Inspirational anecdotes about a model worker and soldier, devoted to aiding the people	442	(5)
92. Housing in Shanghai. A newspaper article describing the effects of state control of housing	447	(2)
93. Red Guards. Red Guards' accounts of their activities during the Cultural Revolution	449	(9)
94. Victims. A short story written after the fall of the "Gang of Four," showing some of the negative effects on both the older and younger generations of the Cultural Revolution	458	(12)
95. The Changing Course of Courtship. Four documents that show the changing circumstances in which young people have looked for spouses	470	(8)
96. The One-Child Family. One province' regulations for fostering the one-child family and a magazine article on the pressure young mothers have experienced because of this policy	478	(4)
97. Economic Liberalization and New Problems for Women. Newspaper and magazine articles protesting some of the ways new policies have had adverse effects on women's employment or welfare	482	(6)
98. Peasants in the Cities. An interview and a newspaper article concerning the rural residents who flocked to the cities in the 1980s	488	(8)
99. Posters Calling for Democracy. Posters from the 1989 Democracy Protests	496	(5)
100. Defending China's Socialist Democracy. A newspaper article refuting the views of those who believe that the West is more democratic than China	501	(4)
Glossary	505	(4)
Suggestions for Further Reading	509	(6)
Original Sources	515	(5)
Index	520