The Ming World / Edition 1

by Kenneth M Swope

Overview

The Ming World draws together scholars from all over the world to bring China’s Ming Dynasty (1368-1662) to life, exploring recent scholarly trends and academic debates that highlight the dynamism of the Ming and its key place in the early modern world.

The book is designed to replicate the structure of popular Ming-era unofficial histories that gathered information and gossip from a wide variety of fields and disciplines. Engaging with a broad array of primary and secondary sources, the authors build upon earlier scholarship while extending the field to embrace new theories, methodologies, and interpretive frameworks. It is divided into five thematically linked sections: Institutions, Ideas, Identities, Individuals, and Interactions.

Unique in its breadth and scope, The Ming World is essential reading for scholars and postgraduates of early modern China, the history of East Asia and anyone interested in gaining a broader picture of the colorful Ming world and its inhabitants.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138190986
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/04/2019
Series:	Routledge Worlds
Pages:	578
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Kenneth M. Swope is Professor of History and Senior Fellow of the Dale Center for the Study of War & Society at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is also a board member of the Chinese Military History Society and the book review editor for The Journal of Chinese Military History. His publications include A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592-1598; The Military Collapse of China’s Ming Dynasty, 1618-1644; On the Trail of the Yellow Tiger: War, Trauma and Social Dislocation in Southwest China During the Ming-Qing Transition.

Table of Contents

List of figures viii

List of maps x

List of tables xi

About the contributors xii

Ming Dynasty reign titles and dates xiv

Ming weights and measures xv

Introduction 1

Part I Institutions 11

1 Mapping the background: the uncertain influence of the Ming state and imperial leadership Thomas G. Nimick 17

2 Nanjing's Longjiang Shipyard Treatise and our knowledge of Ming ships Sally K. Church 34

3 How Yongle learned to stop worrying and love the gun: perspectives on early Ming military history Tonio Andrade 71

4 The paradoxical effect of autocracy: collective deliberation in the Ming official merit-evaluation system Yang Wei 88

5 Deserts and islands: the politics of border control, 1547-45 Roland L. Higgins 102

Part II Ideas 125

6 Cartography in the Ming Kenneth J. Hammond 125

7 Gender and religion in the Ming Ann Waltner 150

8 Adopting The Orphan: theater and urban culture in Ming China Yuming He 161

9 Theater and society in the Ming world Hsiao Li-ling 185

Part III Identities 201

10 The Han-ness of Ming China Leo K. Shin 207

11 The Hall of Supreme Harmony as a simulacrum of Ming dynasty construction Aurelia Campbell 221

12 The Confucian ideal friend Ying Zhang 241

13 The lineage organization in Ming China: a case study of Haining in the sixteenth century Ivy Maria Lim 258

14 Soaring dragon amid dynastic transition: dates and legitimacy among the post-Ming Chinese diaspora Xing Hang 279

Part IV Individuals 305

15 The legend of Tang Saier Kenneth M. Swope 311

16 Wang Yangming in Chuzhou and Nanjing, 1513-1516: "I have only two words to say: 'Be truthful!'" George L. Israel 322

17 Zhang Dai's (1597-1680) music life in late Ming China Joseph S. C. Lam 343

18 The making of an empress in life and death: empresses Xiaoduan's and Xiaojing's burial goods in the Ding Mausoleum Luk Yu-ping 366

19 From peasant rebel to Ming loyalist: the career of Li Dingguo Kenneth M. Swope 385

Part V Interactions 403

20 The Ming as a Eurasian power Edward L. Farmer 409

21 Contested histories of Ming agency in the Java Sea, Straits of Melaka, and Bay of Bengal region Kenneth R. Hall 425

22 Dai Viet in the Ming world John K. Whitmore 443

23 Korean eunuchs as imperial envoys: relations with Choson through the Zhengde reign Sixiang Wang 460

24 War, commerce, and tributary relations in the Sino-Korean borderland of the late sixteenth century Masato Hasegawa 481

Selected Chinese character glossary 500

Bibliography 514

Index 550