The disappearance of China’s naturally occurring forests is one of the most significant environmental shifts in the country’s history, one often blamed on imperial demand for lumber. China’s early modern forest history is typically viewed as a centuries-long process of environmental decline, culminating in a nineteenth-century social and ecological crisis. Pushing back against ...(展开全部)

Although scholars have begun to revise the traditional view that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked a decline in the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire, Baki Tezcan's 2010 book proposes a radical approach to this period. While he concurs that decline did take place in certain areas, he constructs a new framework by foregrounding the proto-democratization of the Ottoman...(展开全部)

龍安志，社會活動家、國際危機調停人、政治經濟學家和作家。20世紀90年代，他以專業律師和經濟學家身份擔任越南、老撾和柬埔寨央行的顧問，指導這些國家在社會主義轉型期的金融改革，並指導蒙古國的企業改制。在整個20世紀90年代，龍安志向中國的領導人就國有企業改革建言獻策。 自2002年以來，龍安志在喜馬拉雅的高原地帶，以新的模式恢復和發展藏族的文化傳統工藝，開發生態旅遊，將古舊藏族建築修復改造為精品客棧，為底層女性和殘疾人提供小額貸款，為邊遠地區的牧民提供醫療、興建學校。龍安志創辦了非政府組織香巴拉。他還作為北京和達賴喇嘛之間的橋樑，擔任談判中的對話者。 龍安志的著作主題廣泛，關於亞洲的有20多本。他是香港《南華早報》和《亞洲觀察》雜誌的專欄作家和評論員。目前，龍安志主要致力於“喜馬拉雅共識”非政府組織的工作和“非洲共識決議”的創立。

Focusing on the Ming (1368-1644) and (especially) the Qing (1364-1912) eras, this book analyzes crucial moments in the formation of cultural, regional, and religious identities. The contributors examine the role of the state in a variety of environments on China's "peripheries," paying attention to shifts in law, trade, social stratification, and cultural dialogue. They find th...(展开全部)

This groundbreaking book argues that in the Qin-Han period, there arose in China a regime of textual authority-one that overlapped but did not coincide with imperial authority. Drawing on a wide range of research and theory, Connery makes an original contribution to the analysis of early imperial elite culture, particularly in the fields of literature and linguistics, intellect...(展开全部)

The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire explores the serious and far-reaching impacts of Little Ice Age climate fluctuations in Ottoman lands. This study demonstrates how imperial systems of provisioning and settlement that defined Ottoman power in the 1500s came unraveled in the face of ecological pressures and extreme cold and drought, leading to the outbr...(展开全部)

Why would an inkstone have a poem inscribed on it? Early modern Chinese writers did not limit themselves to working with brushes and ink, and their texts were not confined to woodblock-printed books or the boundaries of the paper page. Poets carved lines of verse onto cups, ladles, animal horns, seashells, walking sticks, boxes, fans, daggers, teapots, and musical instruments. ...(展开全部)

Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China is not simply a survey of sixteenth-century images, but rather, a thorough and thoughtful examination of visual culture in China's Ming Dynasty, one that considers images wherever they appeared—not only paintings, but also illustrated books, maps, ceramic bowls, lacquered boxes, painted fans, and even clothing and tomb pictures. Clun...(展开全部)

The role of contract in early modern Chinese economic life, when acknowledged at all, is usually presented as a minor one. This volume demonstrates that contract actually played a critical role in the everyday structure of many kinds of relationships and transactions; contracts are, moreover, of enormous value to present-day scholars as transcriptions of the fine details of day...(展开全部)