The Tang dynasty is often called China’s “golden age,” a period of commercial, religious, and cultural connections from Korea and Japan to the Persian Gulf, and a time of unsurpassed literary creativity. Mark Lewis captures a dynamic era in which the empire reached its greatest geographical extent under Chinese rule, painting and ceramic arts flourished, women played a major role both as rulers and in the economy, and China produced its finest lyric poets in Wang Wei, Li Bo, and Du Fu.
The Chinese engaged in extensive trade on sea and land. Merchants from Inner Asia settled in the capital, while Chinese entrepreneurs set off for the wider world, the beginning of a global diaspora. The emergence of an economically and culturally dominant south that was controlled from a northern capital set a pattern for the rest of Chinese imperial history. Poems celebrated the glories of the capital, meditated on individual loneliness in its midst, and described heroic young men and beautiful women who filled city streets and bars.
Despite the romantic aura attached to the Tang, it was not a time of unending peace. In 756, General An Lushan led a revolt that shook the country to its core, weakening the government to such a degree that by the early tenth century, regional warlordism gripped many areas, heralding the decline of the Great Tang.
Author(s): Mark Edward Lewis, Timothy Brook
Series: History of Imperial China Ⅲ
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Year: 2012
Language: English
Commentary: Contains the images from the paperback edition
Pages: 367
Tags: Imperial China, Tang Dynasty
Cover
Contents
Maps
Figures
China's Cosmopolitan Empire
Introduction
1. The Geography of Empire
China’s Ancient Heartland, Guanzhong
The Northeast, the Central Plain, and Sichuan
The South
Water Transportation
The “Inner” and “Outer” Realms
2. From Foundation to Rebellion
Consolidating the Tang Empire
Emperor Xuanzong’s Reign and An Lushan’s Rebellion
The Tang Military System
China’s Medieval “Aristocracy”
The Tang Legal Code
Land Ownership and Taxation
3. Warlords and Monopolists
Regional versus Central Power
Factionalism
Varieties of Regional Power
Military Regionalism and New Political Roles
Fiscal Regionalism and New Political Roles
4. Urban Life
The Layout of Chang’an and Luoyang
The Pleasure Quarters of Chang’an
A Passion for Flowers
The Commercialization of Tang Cities
Taxes and Currency
5. Rural Society
New Patterns of Landholding
Agricultural Technology
Long-Distance Trade and Commercialization
Tea and Sugar
6. The Outer World
The Tang Ruler as Heavenly Qaghan
The Emergence of East Asia
The Reconfiguration of International Trade
Foreigners in Tang China
Buddhists as Foreigners
7. Kinship
Women in Tang Families
Changes in the Ancestral Cult
The Great Families of the Tang
The End of the Great Families
8. Religion
Daoism in the Tang
Daoist Nuns and Priestesses
The Emergence of a Chinese Buddhism
Confucian Ritual in State and Local Cults
Rereading the Confucian Canon
Printing
9. Writing
Location and Lyric in Early Tang Poetry
High Tang Poetry’s Reassimilation of the Past
The Changing Image of the Poet
Romantic Fictions
Critical Essays
Conclusion
Indexes
Dates and Dynasties
Pronunciation Guide
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
