Middle Imperial China, 900–1350
Douban
A New History
Linda Walton
overview
In this highly readable and engaging work, Linda Walton presents a dynamic survey of China's history from the tenth through the mid-fourteenth centuries from the founding of the Song dynasty through the Mongol conquest when Song China became part of the Mongol Empire and Marco Polo made his famous journey to the court of the Great Khan. Adopting a thematic approach, she highlights the political, social, economic, intellectual, and cultural changes and continuities of the period often conceptualized as 'Middle Imperial China'. Particular emphasis is given to themes that inform scholarship on world history: religion, the state, the dynamics of empire, the transmission of knowledge, the formation of political elites, gender, and the family. Consistent coverage of peoples beyond the borders – Khitan, Tangut, Jurchen, and Mongol, among others – provides a broader East Asian context and introduces a more nuanced, integrated representation of China's past.
contents
Introduction: Middle Imperial China in East Asian and world History;
1. The turbulent tenth century: transforming the East Asian world;
2. Song in a multipolar world;
3. Schooling, state, and society in song and Jin;
4. An economic revolution?;
5. Cities and urban life;
6. Religious transformations;
7. Ways of knowing: learning and knowledge;
8. The arts of culture;
9. Gendered and generational lives: women, men, children and families;
10. Mapping the built and natural environment;
11. Sustaining life and healing bodies: food and medicine;
12. The Mongol Yuan dynasty in China;
13. Yuan China in the Mongol Eurasian Empire.