City of Heavenly Tranquility

2015-08-10 History

Author : Jasper Becker
Release : 2015-08-10
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 856/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis City of Heavenly Tranquility by : Jasper Becker

Download or read book City of Heavenly Tranquility written by Jasper Becker. This book was released on 2015-08-10. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A startling, eye-opening account of a fascinating and decisive moment in Chinese history, packed with evocative stories. Jasper Becker tells the story of why and how China's leaders set about to destroy and rebuild one of the world's greatest cities and how many of the residents tried to stop it and protect their great architectural legacy.

City of Heavenly Tranquillity

2008-06-05 History

Author : Jasper Becker
Release : 2008-06-05
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 034/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis City of Heavenly Tranquillity by : Jasper Becker

Download or read book City of Heavenly Tranquillity written by Jasper Becker. This book was released on 2008-06-05. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The great city of Beijing, capital of China from the ninth century, and given its form for five hundred years by the Ming Dynasty, was for a millennium one of the most extraordinary places on earth. At a time when London, Paris, or Rome had only several hundred thousand residents, Beijing held over a million. This book tells the history of this great city, and through it provides a highly engaging summary history of China. In the summer of 1997, President Jiang Zemin made a decision to destroy the old city. There was no announcement, no explanation given, nor any attempt made to justify his decision. Even those working as architects only became aware of what was happening when it was already too late. Expertly moving between historical analysis and reportage, Jasper Becker describes the impact of this systematic destruction, a unique telling of the history of Beijing that encapsulates both the grandeur of its creation and the tragedy of its current transformation.

The Spirit of Cities

2013-10-27 Social Science

Author : Daniel A. Bell
Release : 2013-10-27
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 696/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Spirit of Cities by : Daniel A. Bell

Download or read book The Spirit of Cities written by Daniel A. Bell. This book was released on 2013-10-27. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively and personal book that returns the city to political thought Cities shape the lives and outlooks of billions of people, yet they have been overshadowed in contemporary political thought by nation-states, identity groups, and concepts like justice and freedom. The Spirit of Cities revives the classical idea that a city expresses its own distinctive ethos or values. In the ancient world, Athens was synonymous with democracy and Sparta represented military discipline. In this original and engaging book, Daniel Bell and Avner de-Shalit explore how this classical idea can be applied to today's cities, and they explain why philosophy and the social sciences need to rediscover the spirit of cities. Bell and de-Shalit look at nine modern cities and the prevailing ethos that distinguishes each one. The cities are Jerusalem (religion), Montreal (language), Singapore (nation building), Hong Kong (materialism), Beijing (political power), Oxford (learning), Berlin (tolerance and intolerance), Paris (romance), and New York (ambition). Bell and de-Shalit draw upon the richly varied histories of each city, as well as novels, poems, biographies, tourist guides, architectural landmarks, and the authors' own personal reflections and insights. They show how the ethos of each city is expressed in political, cultural, and economic life, and also how pride in a city's ethos can oppose the homogenizing tendencies of globalization and curb the excesses of nationalism. The Spirit of Cities is unreservedly impressionistic. Combining strolling and storytelling with cutting-edge theory, the book encourages debate and opens up new avenues of inquiry in philosophy and the social sciences. It is a must-read for lovers of cities everywhere. In a new preface, Bell and de-Shalit further develop their idea of "civicism," the pride city dwellers feel for their city and its ethos over that of others.

The Yuan Dynasty

2016-07-15 Juvenile Nonfiction

Author : David L. Dreier
Release : 2016-07-15
Genre : Juvenile Nonfiction
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 685/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Yuan Dynasty by : David L. Dreier

Download or read book The Yuan Dynasty written by David L. Dreier. This book was released on 2016-07-15. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under Kublai Khan, the Mongols conquered the Southern Song Dynasty and established rule over China. The ensuing Yuan Dynasty, though in power for less than a century, was notable for its blending of Mongol and Chinese culture in drama, music, and painting, as well as government reform and public-works projects. In this riveting account, readers will learn about daily life in the Yuan Dynasty for both the upper classes and the common people, and they will join Kublai Khan on some of his ill-fated later invasion attempts.

The Precious Summary

2023-03-21 Literary Collections

Author :
Release : 2023-03-21
Genre : Literary Collections
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 73X/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Precious Summary by :

Download or read book The Precious Summary written by . This book was released on 2023-03-21. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mongols, their khans, and the empire they built and ruled in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries exert an enduring fascination. Caricatured as a marauding horde that ravaged surrounding peoples, in reality the Mongols created institutions, trading networks, economic systems, and intellectual and technological exchanges that shaped the early modern world. However, the centuries after the waning of Mongol power remain overlooked in comparison to the days of Chinggis Khan. The Precious Summary is the most important work of Mongolian history on the three-hundred-year period before the rise of the Manchu Qing dynasty. Written by Sagang Sechen in 1662, shortly after the Mongols’ submission to the Qing, it chronicles the fall of the Yuan dynasty in China, the Mongol-Oirat wars, and the revival of Mongol power during the reign of Dayan Khan in the sixteenth century. Sagang Sechen’s masterful account spans Buddhist cosmology, Chinggis Khan, the post-Yuan Mongols, Chinese history, and the Mongols’ conversion to Buddhism—and throughout, it attempts to come to terms with the new Manchu state. Featuring extensive and accessible annotations and explanations of historical context, Johan Elverskog’s translation of the Precious Summary offers invaluable perspective on Inner Asian and Chinese history, Mongolian historiography, and the history of Buddhism in Asia.

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