Customer Reviews

Chronicle of the Chinese Emperors: The Reign-By-Reign Record of the Rulers of Imperial China

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A blooper on page 10 says it all: the Sui Dynasty is inexplicably represented by the character 'Qi'. Paludan's book is well-intentioned and nicely-illustrated, but her grasp of the Chinese language and experience in historical research are clearly not up to the daunting task of presenting a comprehensive account of imperial Chinese history. As her bibliography shows, she has had to rely on several dated works in English, as well as more recent and authoritative ones like the massive Cambridge History of China. However, she flounders badly in the second section ("Confusion, Reunification and Golden Age", AD 220-907) and never makes it out of the confusion. The text in this section is peppered with factual inaccuracies and errors in translation that can only be blamed on general ignorance. While struggling with the emperors of the Southern Dynasties, she ignores those of the concurrent Northern Dynasties, sparing only two pages to comment on socio-economic developments in the North. The rulers of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms receive equally sparse attention. The superficial quotations that she has selected from Western sources betray the same lack of depth in examining the historical record.

It would be unfair to single out Ann Paludan for lack of scholarship, however, because the ages of fragmentation from AD 189-589 and 907-979 suffer from a miserable dearth of research among Western historians of China. Paludan apparently had only three sources in English to go upon, none published within the last 20 years. Sadly, one of them is the famous but thoroughly mythologised "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the author of which she characteristically names as Zhong Luo Guan rather than Luo Guanzhong. She parrots that novel's popular perception of the Three Kingdoms as "the golden age of chivalry and romance", without any attempt to compare this with historical reality.

From here, everything goes downhill, because the Cambridge History volume on the 220-589 period has yet to be published. Paludan, probably referring to the primary sources, fails completely to get her facts and names right, translating "Prince of Yingyang" as "Sun King of Ying", for example, and referring to his replacement by an "older" half-brother when that brother was in fact younger. For that matter, Paludan bothers to give us the Chinese characters for the temple names and reign titles of the various emperors, but not their actual names (not even in romanized form, in many cases). One would think the reader is just as much interested to know the name an emperor was born with.

The later chapters from Tang to Qing are rather more credible, but readers would do better to read the (still incomplete) Cambridge History and F.W. Mote's "Imperial China 900-1800" for the same information in greater detail and accuracy. Sadly, a proper history of the chaotic period from AD 189 to 589, imperial China's longest ever period of inter-regional war, has yet to be written for English-speaking readers (David A. Graff's recent "Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300-900 AD" has gone some way towards filling that gap in the political and military aspects). Beyond brief excursions into the then-rising religions of Buddhism and Daoism, Ann Paludan does not even begin to do justice to its fascinating complexities.

Having read two others in this series (Roman Emperors and Russian Tzars), I was somewhat disapoionted by this book in the series. Prehaps it has to do with the complexity of the subject matter and the politics of the Chinese Imperial Court itself but I found the book jumping from reign to reign describing many of the emperors with only a sentence or two. Also, it seemed like the book spent more time talking about the other players in court life rather than the emperor himself. Also, while the book has numerous pictures only a few of the emperors have a picture in the book. I would have liked to see pictures of all the emperors if possible. My final complaint with the book is that it would talk about other players in court life or politics without introducing them or putting their role in context.

For example, the book often says something such as "following the death of Emperor X, Mr. Y was able to place the infant son of so-and-so on the throne where thereafter Mr. Y dominated Chinese government for the next 50 years" but then say nothing more about the emperor or Mr. Y and the book would just jump to the next emperor.

I can understand that it is beyond the scope of the book, but over and over the author points out that often the power behind the throne was a woman but then never really descibes the woman or how she came to exert such influnce.

Overall I enjoyed the book very much, but the text seemed to raise many questions and skip around. As a result, after I finished the book I felt I knew less about the Chinese Emperors than I did the Roman Emperors or Russian Tzars after reading those books.

In spite of the faults I found with the book, it was still an enjoyable book to read and the pictures were interesting. I would recomend this book to the general reader or somebody who is just starting to learn Chinese History.

I have always wanted a book of Imperial China to keep as a reference and I have found it. It gives a good account of the subject from a primarily historical point of view and is free from any critical viewpoint. The author has also included changes in the social makeup as well as advances in the arts which added to the pleasure of reading. But more important is gives a very good description of each emperor and their achievements or failures. It does not analyse each reign in detail, it fact it is quite superficial, but I do not think it weakens the book. It fact I think it one of the strengths of the book that it is easy to read ands a good starting point for someone who is interested in Imperial China.

I am now looking for a similar book to cover the period from the mythical emperors to the first Qin Emperor.

The publisher, Thames and Hudson, does a great job producing all of the books in their "Chronicle" series of historical overviews: sturdy covers; attractive dust jackets; and heavy, slick stock to withstand years of reference and re-reading. These books make important, useful additions to home libraries.

This book is a record of China's emperors, from Qin Shihuangdi (221BC), to Puyi (deposed in 1911AD). The story is told in the clear, instructive prose of author Ann Paludan, and the story is supported and enhanced by "368 illustrations with 126 in color", as proclaimed in the dust jacket blurbs. Among the illustrations, one finds photographs of historical locations, art works, and tombs, as well as maps and portraits of the emperors.

This is not an exhaustive history, but an informative, easy to follow -- thanks to timelines-- overview. It is quite possible that the basis for many school reports will be found here.

It may come as a surprise to many, but this book is enjoyable to read. It is a good choice for a parent, or a student seeking to get acquainted with the Chinese Imperial System, which existed for 2000 years.

Thames and Hudson and Ann Paludin present a detailed, interesting and complex picture of the people who have ruled China - The Middle Kingdom. The 157 rulers covered are from Qin Shihungdi to Xuandi (PuYi), and include Empress Wu Zetian - the only female Emperor of China. Where knwon the wives and major concubines or each Emperor are listed along with the number of children - but not their names.

The addition of timelines combine the history of China with that of the rest-of-the-world provide the reader with a great flow of information. Numerous sidelines of information are provided such as the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City.

All-inall another great work for the historian and the interested reader.

For all Chinese Emperors the book shows the Chinese signs, the temple name and the dates of their accession and their death. From 400 AD onwards gradually the birth date, name of the parents and wives, the number of children and the place of the tomb are added. The rulers of a period of 2100 years are described in 224 richly illustrated pages with additional time lines, quotes and special features, so the books can not dig very deep into the characters of the Emperors. Eleven rulers of five dynasties in the period 907-960 are described in 1 paragraph, but famous Emperors like Qin Shihuangdi, Xuanzong, Kublai Khan and Qianlong are described in more than 3 pages each. Nevertheless, the story of the Chinese Emperors and dynasties is a very interesting one. Not only the decline of a dynasty was marked by murders and suicides. The only reigning Empress of China ever, Wu Zetian, remained in power by murdering other members of the imperial family. Ming Jiajing narrowly escaped being strangled by his concubines and Prince Wuzong was chosen as Emperor by the eunuchs, who slew two rival candidates and their mothers. Still, some Emperors were mainly interested in artistic, intellectual or spiritual pursuits. The special features give additional background information with topics like the Great Wall, the Terracotta Army and the Forbidden City. The book really gives a clear overview. What I especially liked were the tables with information about each Emperor and the many portraits.

The author states that the first Tang Emperor, Li Yuan, designated his second son, Li Shimin, a crown prince. In fact, the crown prince was not Li Shimin but his first son, killed by Li Shimin in the 926 coup.

This richly illustrated volume looks at the lives of all 157 emperors from Qin Shihuangdi, builder of the Great Wall in 220 BC up to Puyi, 'the last emperor', deposed in 1911. Includes informative little articles on topics like the Mongols, Buddhist art, and the Civil Service. Although little known to western readers, one soon sees that Chinese royalty were just like those of Europe, with much scheming, intrigue and murder. Wonderful and very readable introduction to this period of history

An interesting book which takes the reader chronologically through the complex history of China. It does not go into much depth but focuses on details concerning the reign of each emperor. Lots of illustrations and related side articles make the book both entertaining and easy to read.

I recognized that I knew the dynasties but none of the individual emperors. This book does an excellent job of addressing that. There are boxes for each emperor listing basic facts about the emperor, such as birth name, father's name, mother's name, reign or temple name, as well as dates of birth and of the reign. The text describes the events of the reign. Some of those are very brief, for long ago emperors who only reigned a year or two. I was very pleasantly surprised by the sections that describe other aspects of Chinese history, Han cities, stone statuary and Daoism for example. These help make sense of the events of the emperors' reigns. There are careful time lines and good maps. I wanted to learn about every emperor and this book does an outstanding job of that. The excellent review of Chinese history was an added bonus.