China's Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty (History of Imperial China) First Edition (1st printing) Edition

by Mark Edward Lewis (Author), Timothy Brook (Editor)

14 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0674033061

ISBN-10: 067403306X

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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.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

This is an impressive survey history of the Tang dynasty, concise and accessible. China's Cosmopolitan Empire is written so succinctly and clearly that it provides, to my knowledge, the best summary of the Tang period yet available in English. It will make an excellent source for the general student of Chinese or East Asian history. (David L. McMullen, University of Cambridge)

[A] readable introduction to the Tang Dynasty. (J. K. Skaff Choice 2010-05-01)

This series on China, brilliantly overseen by Timothy Brook, is a credit to Harvard University Press. Above all, it encourages us to think of China in different ways. (Jonathan Mirsky Literary Review 2010-11-01)

In China's Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty, Mark Edward Lewis has done a superb job of synthesizing the scholarship on the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and rendering it into a readable account. Professor Lewis's general narrative of Tang history, chapters two and three of the book, is the best overview of Tang history in any language, and would be a good starting point for anyone interested in the dynasty...There is a large corpus of scholarship in English on Tang dynasty history and culture. China's Cosmopolitan Empire is an admirable addition to that corpus. It will undoubtedly become the standard survey in English for the foreseeable future. (Peter Lorge Journal of Military History 2011-01-01)

With clarity and rich details, sustained by quotes, anecdotes, poems, and visual images, Lewis brings to life the vitality of a transforming China in geography, politics, urban life, rural society, the outer world, kinship, religion, and writing, all in comparison with previous times...Lewis's nuanced details of a changing Tang are direct challenges to the dated but still influential views of China as an unchanging Sinocentric empire, uninterested in commerce and foreign contact. (Yihong Pan China Review International 2009-05-01)

Lewis' book will be of great interest and utility to general readers as well as students who are looking for a lucid overview of Tang history and culture. (Michael R. Drompp Journal of Asian History 2010-10-01)

Mark Edward Lewis has produced an impressive volume on the history of the Tang dynasty...Its greatest contribution is its integration of the latest secondary scholarship into interesting arguments about the evolution of Chinese society between the seventh and tenth centuries...This book remains an excellent place to see the latest insights into Tang history. It is a thought-provoking effort to synthesize that work and reflect on the significance of the Tang for China's history. If it inspires the next generation of students to pursue Tang history seriously, Lewis will have made a real contribution to Tang studies. (Anthony DeBlasi Journal of Asian Studies 2010-05-01)

About the Author

Mark Edward Lewis is Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Chinese Culture at Stanford University.

Series: History of Imperial China (Book 3)
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press; First Edition (1st printing) edition (June 30, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 067403306X
ISBN-13: 978-0674033061
Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
Average Customer Review: 14 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,953,041 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #164 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Movements > Rationalism
- #1432 in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Geography > Regional
- #3157 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > History > Asia

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Jeffrey Reed

Very Nice Introduction to Tang Dynasty China

January 18, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I would actually like to give this 4.5 stars but I dont have that option!

I like this series of books--there is one on early Chinese empires and on the Ching Dynasty as well. They are quite comprehensive, covering the broad contours of the empires, in this case the Tang Empire. In addition, though these are scholarly works, they are written as much as possible with the lay reader in mind. I am an academic, so I appreciate all the paraphernalia that goes along with these books, particularly the notes and bibliographies. But, I am not a China expert, so I appreciate the presentation in a fairly clear and readable format.

In this volume, I do have one small criticism. I love the chapters devoted to religion, ideas and culture. But, they do, in this particular volume on the Tang, require a certain amount of pre-existing knowledge on the part of the reader. This is especially the case in the chapters on religion dealing with Buddhism and Taoism. The author tends to introduce concepts and personalities and presumes that the reader has some background knowledge. If it gets someone to go to the notes and bibliography and read more for themselves, that is great. But it may turn some people off. He writes about culture, poetry and ideas in a similar vein.

I also may have a small quibble with the author's use of evidence from the Song dynasty, the Tang successor, which he sometimes uses to illustrate events and ideas from the Tang--arguing that the origins of the Song practice is rooted in the Tang. This is a very very small criticism, however.

All in all, this is a very nice, comprehensive introduction to Tang dynasty China, written for a general audience by an expert.

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dmiguer

The Empire Strikes Back

November 7, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The emergence of the Tang Dynasty in 618 followed the Yellow River in northern China from present-day Xian across Shaanxi's plateau to the east, and westward through Gansu's mountain corridor through the deserts of Xinjiang. It was a tremendous expansion that rivaled and surpassed the Han Dynasty. At its greatest extent, it reached parts of Vietnam and influenced Korea and Japan's development.

This development was abruptly curtailed in 756 by the An Lushan rebellion in the west, which led to civil unrest and border wars until the Tang's collapse in 907. During the later period, China's center of gravity would shift permanently south to the Yangtze river valley. In later phases of the empire frequent fighting with Tibetans, Uighurs and Arabs reversed Tang pre-eminence among bordering kingdoms.

This volume of Harvard's recent six-part history of Imperial China is authored by Mark Edward Lewis, who also wrote the two earlier volumes on the Qin-Han and Southern-Northern dynasties. Lewis is a professor of history at Stanford University in California. He has set a high standard of writing previously in this series and maintains it here. His first book on the Han won a prize from the Belles-Lettres Academy of France.

As with the other volumes, this is a hybrid of chronological and thematic history. After the basic narrative of the dynastic foundation, rebellion and dissolution is told, chapters on cities, countryside, family, religion, and literature follow. There is an extended look at Tang relations with the outer world. Commerce and religion on silk road routes brought conflict with Turks to the west and nomads in the north.

Although written in a scholarly manner, this book may be enjoyable for a general reader. It contains enough cultural information beyond dates, places, and events to maintain interest. Compressing three centuries of civilization into three hundred pages becomes too abbreviated. I wish there were more histories of the Tang dynasty available beyond the basic textbooks. This is the best I've found, and it's very good.

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Jomo K

I expected more details

January 4, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Not sure why I did not particularly jive with this text. I had been hoping for much more, I guess, and the way Lewis writes is monotonous. I am a big fan of Chinese History, especially the Tang Dynasty, so I was hoping for more detailed and relevant information. Yet, I prefer the crystal clear explanations and data presented in Tanner's Vol. 1 on Chinese History or even the playful (though arguably dated) writing and explanations of Fairbanks in his China: A New History. That said, I don't think Lewis presented that much more information than Tanner.

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Puzzler

Don't bother with the Kindle edition

December 18, 2011

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This book is comprehensive, providing English language material that is difficult or impossible to find anywhere else. However, the Kindle (digital) edition is a sham. No illustrations are included; instead, readers are referred to the print edition. Great, so we should have to buy the print edition as well? Kind of defeats the purpose of buying a digital edition doesn't it?

The publishers did not take care when producing the digital edition. It is filled with awkwardly hyphenated words that don't go away regardless of which orientation you use.

Note that all these comments are for the iPad Kindle version; I don't know whether the normal Kindle edition is complete. I'm very disappointed with the digital version.

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Kindle Customer

Great, interesting, very thorough

November 11, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book is great at looking cultural and scructural changes and their causes and effects. I wish there was more in the way of more traditional military or political history, like better descriptions of the founding or fall of the dynasty, and also better descriptions of events or works he commonly talks about. For example, the author uses the story of Ms. Ren, the romantic tale of a fox demon to describe many different aspects of tang writing and culture, but doesn't give a complete summary of the story, and only gives a partial one long after he begins using it as an example.

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