Metamorphic Imagery in Ancient Chinese Art and Religion demonstrates that the concept of metamorphism was central to ancient Chinese religious belief and practices from at least the late Neolithic period through the Warring States Period of the Zhou dynasty. Central to the authors' argument is the ubiquitous motif in early Chinese figurative art, the metamorphic power mask. While the motif underwent stylistic variation over time, its formal properties remained stable, underscoring the image's ongoing religious centrality. It symbolized the metamorphosis, through the phenomenon of death, of royal personages from living humans to deceased ancestors who required worship and sacrificial offerings. Treated with deference and respect, the royal ancestors lent support to their living descendants, ratifying, and upholding their rule; neglected, they became dangerous, even malevolent. Employing a multidisciplinary approach that integrates archaeologically recovered objects with literary evidence from oracle bone and bronze inscriptions to canonical texts, all situated in the appropriate historical context, the study presents detailed analyses of form and style, and of change over time, observing the importance of relationality and the dynamic between imagery, materials and affects. This book is a significant publication in the field of early China studies, presenting an integrated conception of ancient art and religion that surpasses any other work now available.

China Briefing, 1987 reviews the events and trends of the year 1987 in foreign relations, domestic politics, the economy, foreign investment and technology transfer, defense, and culture. It is essential reading for travelers bound for China, business executives, and journalists.

This book presents a broad selection of the papers presented at IDENTA '85 on various topics, including counter-terrorism; Israel's experience with terrorism; police and terrorism; and psychological methods, forensic science and voice identification in criminal investigation. The conference on International Congress on Technologies for Police Identification & Counter-Terrorism, was held in 1985 in Jerusalem.

China Briefing, 1985 approaches the events of the previous year providing a long-term perspective on the dramatic developments of spring and summer 1984. Senior China specialists examine the student demonstrations and their aftermath in the larger context of the 40-year history of the People's Republic of China and also reflect on future directions

This book presents a broad selection of the papers presented at IDENTA '85 on various topics, including counter-terrorism; Israel's experience with terrorism; police and terrorism; and psychological methods, forensic science and voice identification in criminal investigation. The conference on International Congress on Technologies for Police Identification & Counter-Terrorism, was held in 1985 in Jerusalem.

The year 1986 marked the tenth anniversary of the death of Mao Zedong and the fall of the Gang of Four. A decade after the end of the Cultural Revolution, China experienced the consolidation of rural economic reform, continued progress in urban reform, a widening of the "open door" to the west, and, perhaps most important, the seemingly irreversible impact on Chinese society and culture of Deng Xiaoping's new policies. The political consequences of reform continued to create problems, as was seen at year's end in a dramatic series of student demonstrations and the disciplining of several high party officials and intellectuals. This annual volume reviews the events and trends of the year in foreign relations, domestic politics, the economy, foreign investment and technology transfer, defense, and culture. A separate chapter provides an overview of events in Taiwan. Complementing these essays by distinguished China scholars is a chronology of significant events and a selection of important documents published during 1986. The book is ideal for course use and is essential reading for travelers bound for China, business executives, journalists, and China watchers in general.

China Briefing, 1985 approaches the events of the previous year providing a long-term perspective on the dramatic developments of spring and summer 1984. Senior China specialists examine the student demonstrations and their aftermath in the larger context of the 40-year history of the People's Republic of China and also reflect on future directions for the nation. The authors assess the impact of the events of 1984 on politics, the economy, foreign relations, social issues, and culture, as well as on Taiwan, Tibet, and Hong Kong.

Ancient China: A History surveys the East Asian Heartland Region - the geographical area that eventually became known as China - from the Neolithic period through the Bronze Age, to the early imperial era of Qin and Han, up to the threshold of the medieval period in the third century CE. For most of that long span of time there was no such place as "China"; the vast and varied territory of the Heartland Region was home to many diverse cultures that only slowly coalesced, culturally, linguistically, and politically, to form the first recognizably Chinese empires. The field of Early China Studies is being revolutionized in our time by a wealth of archaeologically recovered texts and artefacts. Major and Cook draw on this exciting new evidence and a rich harvest of contemporary scholarship to present a leading-edge account of ancient China and its antecedents. With handy pedagogical features such as maps and illustrations, as well as an extensive list of recommendations for further reading, Ancient China: A History is an important resource for undergraduate and postgraduate courses on Chinese History, and those studuing Chinese Culture and Society more generally.

This stunning exhibition unveils the remarkable art and historical legacy of two mysterious kingdoms of ancient China. Phoenix Kingdoms brings to life the distinctive Bronze Age cultures that flourished along the middle course of the Yangzi River in South Central China about 2,500 years ago. With over 150 objects on loan from five major Chinese museums, Phoenix Kingdoms explores the artistic and spiritual landscape of the southern borderland of the Zhou dynasty, featuring remarkable archaeological finds unearthed from aristocratic tombs of the phoenix-worshipping Zeng and Chu kingdoms. By revealing the splendid material cultures of these legendary states, whose history has only recently been recovered, Phoenix Kingdoms highlights the importance of this region in forming a southern style that influenced centuries of Chinese art. This exhibition catalogue includes six essays that contextualize the stylistically rich material-mythical creatures, elaborate patterns, and elegant forms-and introduces readers to the technologically and artistically sophisticated cultures that thrived before China's first empire. Lavishly illustrated with over 240 images, Phoenix Kingdoms showcases works from the exhibition across six categories-jades, bronze ritual vessels, musical instruments and weapons, lacquerware for luxury and ceremony, funerary bronze and wood objects, and textiles and unique objects featuring distinctive designs-many of which are considered national treasures. Published in association with the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

Between the fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries, there was created under the Yi Dynasty in Korea a remarkable series of astronomical instruments, star-charts and clocks. The present volume is the result of close collaboration between four distinguished historians of Asian science to demonstrate the context, purpose, nature and specific workings of these early scientific instruments. Specially commissioned drawings and other illustrations demonstrate their complexities of design and operation. A brief introduction is given to the Chinese background of Korean astronomy and astronomical instrument-making and to the renaissance of Korean astronomy in the early fifteenth century. In a detailed examination of the instruments made under the supervision of King Sejong in the 1430s, there is documentation of the re-equipping of the Royal Observatory, with identification of the individual instruments involved. A survey of the succeeding two centuries gives the background to Song Iyong's instrument, identified as a demonstrational armillary sphere in the Koryo University Museum.

Ancient China: A History surveys the East Asian Heartland Region - the geographical area that eventually became known as China - from the Neolithic period through the Bronze Age, to the early imperial era of Qin and Han, up to the threshold of the medieval period in the third century CE. For most of that long span of time there was no such place as "China"; the vast and varied territory of the Heartland Region was home to many diverse cultures that only slowly coalesced, culturally, linguistically, and politically, to form the first recognizably Chinese empires. The field of Early China Studies is being revolutionized in our time by a wealth of archaeologically recovered texts and artefacts. Major and Cook draw on this exciting new evidence and a rich harvest of contemporary scholarship to present a leading-edge account of ancient China and its antecedents. With handy pedagogical features such as maps and illustrations, as well as an extensive list of recommendations for further reading, Ancient China: A History is an important resource for undergraduate and postgraduate courses on Chinese History, and those studuing Chinese Culture and Society more generally.

Now in print for the first time in almost 40 years, The New Lifetime Reading Plan provides readers with brief, informative and entertaining introductions to more than 130 classics of world literature. From Homer to Hawthorne, Plato to Pascal, and Shakespeare to Solzhenitsyn, the great writers of Western civilization can be found in its pages. In addition, this new edition offers a much broader representation of women authors, such as Charlotte Bront%, Emily Dickinson and Edith Wharton, as well as non-Western writers such as Confucius, Sun-Tzu, Chinua Achebe, Mishima Yukio and many others.

This fourth edition also features a simpler format that arranges the works chronologically in five sections (The Ancient World; 300-1600; 1600-1800; and The 20th Century), making them easier to look up than ever before. It deserves a place in the libraries of all lovers of literature.

This stunning exhibition unveils the remarkable art and historical legacy of two mysterious kingdoms of ancient China. Phoenix Kingdoms brings to life the distinctive Bronze Age cultures that flourished along the middle course of the Yangzi River in South Central China about 2,500 years ago. With over 150 objects on loan from five major Chinese museums, Phoenix Kingdoms explores the artistic and spiritual landscape of the southern borderland of the Zhou dynasty, featuring remarkable archaeological finds unearthed from aristocratic tombs of the phoenix-worshipping Zeng and Chu kingdoms. By revealing the splendid material cultures of these legendary states, whose history has only recently been recovered, Phoenix Kingdoms highlights the importance of this region in forming a southern style that influenced centuries of Chinese art. This exhibition catalogue includes six essays that contextualize the stylistically rich material-mythical creatures, elaborate patterns, and elegant forms-and introduces readers to the technologically and artistically sophisticated cultures that thrived before China's first empire. Lavishly illustrated with over 240 images, Phoenix Kingdoms showcases works from the exhibition across six categories-jades, bronze ritual vessels, musical instruments and weapons, lacquerware for luxury and ceremony, funerary bronze and wood objects, and textiles and unique objects featuring distinctive designs-many of which are considered national treasures. Published in association with the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

A Huguenot on the Hackensack is the first full-length study of David Demarest, an early European settler of northeastern New Jersey and progenitor of a large and locally influential family. The book examines Demarest's life, the legacy of his family, and the wider "Jersey Dutch" community in which the family played a prominent part. The book looks beneath accumulated layers of legend and older historical interpretations to formulate a new and more realistic (and more interesting) account of Demarest's life and legacy. Demarest, a Huguenot (French Protestant), was born about 1620 in the French province of Picardy. He first appears in history with the record of his marriage to Marie Sohier in Middleburg, the Netherlands, in 1643. After marriage and the start of a family, his life unfolded in four sojourns of about a decade or a bit more: Middleburg, 1643 to about 1651; Mannheim, Germany, from about 1651 to 1663; Staten Island and New Harlem, 1663-78, and finally the French Patent along the Hackensack River in New Jersey, 1678 to his death in 1693. New evidence and new interpretations provide a picture of Demarest as an ambitious and upwardly mobile entrepreneur with an unusual talent for balancing risk and opportunity, and a dedicated churchman and community leader under both Dutch and English rule. The book next considers the Demarests in the eighteenth century, when the family rose to prominence in Bergen County, played important roles in the Reformed Church in Hackensack and Schraalenburgh, and began to spread out to other parts of the country. Recapitulating Demarest's own career as an entrepreneur and land developer, some of his descendants settled parts of central Pennsylvania, upstate New York, and Kentucky. Many of those who remained in New Jersey were active in public affairs and the Revolutionary War. By the end of the nineteenth century, enormous changes in Bergen County, including the spread of railroads and the transition from a farming economy to a suburban one, spelled the beginning of the end for the cohesiveness and influence of old, locally prominent Jersey Dutch families such as the Demarests. With further economic and demographic changes following World War II, such families were subsumed into the general population. The book concludes with an assessment of the Demarest family's American experience, looks at how pioneer students of Demarest family history shaped and interpreted his life and legacy against the background of changes in American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and suggests what might yet be learned about Demarest through genetic evidence and the increasing availability of digitized records. Demarest's life and legacy are of interest not just to the large number of his descendants and the numerous descendants of other Jersey Dutch families, but more broadly to those interested in regional history, New Netherland, and American social history.