The Culture of War in China Empire and the Military under the Qing Dynasty

by Waley-Cohen, Joanna

• ISBN13: 9781780766683
• ISBN10: 1780766688
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-02-27
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Summary

Was the primary focus of the Qing dynasty really civil rather than military matters? In this ground-breaking book, Joanna Waley-Cohen overturns conventional wisdom to put warfare at the heart of seventeenth and eighteenth century China. She argues that the civil and the military were understood as mutually complementary forces. Emperors underpinned military expansion with a wide-ranging cultural campaign intended to bring military success, and the martial values associated with it, into the mainstream of cultural life. The Culture of War in China is a striking revisionist history that brings new insight into the roots of Chinese nationalism and the modern militarized state.

Author Biography

Joanna Waley-Cohen is Professor of History at New York University, USA.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Preface
1. Military Culture and the Qing Empire
2. Commemorating War
3. Religion, War, and Empire-Building
4. Military Ritual and the Qing Empire
5. Changing Spaces of Empire
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index