Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 11, Ferrous Metallurgy PDF Download

Author:
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521875668
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 79

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Author: Joseph Needham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521327275
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 646

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Author: John W. Chaffee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316239519
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1127

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This is the second of two volumes on the Sung Dynasty, which together provide a comprehensive history of China from the fall of the T'ang Dynasty in 907 to the Mongol conquest of the Southern Sung in 1279. With contributions from leading historians in the field, Volume 5, Part Two paints a complex portrait of a dynasty beset by problems and contradictions, but one which, despite its military and geopolitical weakness, was nevertheless economically powerful, culturally brilliant, socially fluid and the most populous of any empire in global history to that point. In this much anticipated addition to the series, the authors survey key themes across ten chapters, including government, economy, society, religion, and thought to provide an authoritative and topical treatment of a profound and significant period in Chinese history.

Author: Nicola Di Cosmo
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674262999
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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This volume explores the relationship between culture and the military in Chinese society from early China to the Qing empire, with contributions by eminent scholars aiming to reexamine the relationship between military matters and law, government, historiography, art, philosophy, literature, and politics. The book critically investigates the perception that, due to the influence of Confucianism, Chinese culture has systematically devalued military matters. There was nothing inherently pacifist about the Chinese governments’ views of war, and pragmatic approaches—even aggressive and expansionist projects—often prevailed. Though it has changed in form, a military elite has existed in China from the beginning of its history, and military service included a large proportion of the population at any given time. Popular literature praised the martial ethos of fighting men. Civil officials attended constantly to military matters on the administrative and financial ends. The seven military classics produced in antiquity continued to be read even into the modern period. These original essays explore the ways in which intellectual, civilian, and literary elements helped shape the nature of military institutions, theory, and the culture of war. This important contribution bridges two literatures, military and cultural, that seldom appear together in the study of China, and deepens our understanding of war and society in Chinese history.

Author: Kenneth M. Swope
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806185023
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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The invasion of Korea by Japanese troops in May of 1592 was no ordinary military expedition: it was one of the decisive events in Asian history and the most tragic for the Korean peninsula until the mid-twentieth century. Japanese overlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi envisioned conquering Korea, Ming China, and eventually all of Asia; but Korea’s appeal to China’s Emperor Wanli for assistance triggered a six-year war involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers and encompassing the whole region. For Japan, the war was “a dragon’s head followed by a serpent’s tail”: an impressive beginning with no real ending. Kenneth M. Swope has undertaken the first full-length scholarly study in English of this important conflict. Drawing on Korean, Japanese, and especially Chinese sources, he corrects the Japan-centered perspective of previous accounts and depicts Wanli not as the self-indulgent ruler of received interpretations but rather one actively engaged in military affairs—and concerned especially with rescuing China’s client state of Korea. He puts the Ming in a more vigorous light, detailing Chinese siege warfare, the development and deployment of innovative military technologies, and the naval battles that marked the climax of the war. He also explains the war’s repercussions outside the military sphere—particularly the dynamics of intraregional diplomacy within the shadow of the Chinese tributary system. What Swope calls the First Great East Asian War marked both the emergence of Japan’s desire to extend its sphere of influence to the Chinese mainland and a military revival of China’s commitment to defending its interests in Northeast Asia. Swope’s account offers new insight not only into the history of warfare in Asia but also into a conflict that reverberates in international relations to this day.

Author: Leif Inge Ree Petersen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004254463
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 850

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Siege Warfare and Military Organization in the Successor States is the first study to comprehensively treat an aspect of Byzantine, Western, early Islamic, Slavic and Steppe military history within the framework of common descent from Roman military organization to 800 AD. This not only encompassed the army proper, but also a greater complex of client management, private military retinues, labor obligations and civilian conscription in urban defense that were systematically developed by the Romans around 400, and survived to be adopted and adapted by all successors. The result was a common post-Roman military culture suitable for more restrained economic circumstances but still able to maintain, defend and attack city walls with skills rivalling those of their Roman forebears.

Author: William E. Burns
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1440871175
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 892

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This encyclopedia offers an interdisciplinary approach to studying science and technology within the context of world history. With balanced coverage, a logical organization, and in-depth entries, readers of all inclinations will find useful and interesting information in its contents. Science and Technology in World History takes a truly global approach to the subjects of science and technology and spans the entirety of recorded human history. Topical articles and entries on the subjects are arranged under thematic categories, which are divided further into chronological periods. This format, along with the encyclopedia's integrative approach, offers an array of perspectives that collectively contribute to the understanding of numerous fields across the world and over eras of development. Entries cover discussions of scientific and technological innovations and theories, historical vignettes, and important texts and individuals throughout the world. From the discovery of fire and the innovation of agricultural methods in China to the establishment of surgical practices in France and the invention of Quantum Theory, this encyclopedia offers comprehensive coverage of fascinating topics in science and technology through a straightforward, historical lens.

Author: Axel Müller
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783277319
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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The first full edition and English translation of the RA I.34 Firework Book. Produced from the early fifteenth century onwards, Firework Books are, broadly speaking, manuals on how to use gunpowder, witnessing a major development in warfare. Surviving in a corpus of some 65, each text has different content and components, but core elements are present throughout. An important example is a manuscript in the collection of the Royal Armouries (RA I.34), written in Early New High German, and (unlike many other manuscripts) still in what appears to be its original format and binding; it also, unusually, contains a number of illustrations. This volume provides the first full edition and English translation of the material, with a detailed analysis of its content and context. It positions the Firework Books at a crucial stage in the development of gunpowder artillery, offering an unparalleled insight into fifteenth-century gunpowder technology at a critical juncture of military and technological change at the end of the Middle Ages.

Author: Edward Von der Porten
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 162349768X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Ghost Galleon tells the story of archaeologists’ twenty-year search on a desolate beach in Baja California for the enigmatic remains of a Spanish galleon that disappeared without a trace more than four centuries ago. Carrying a cargo of Asian riches to the New World, Manila galleons forged the final link in the unification of the world through commerce by their annual voyages across the Pacific Ocean. Here, author Edward Von der Porten relates how a chance viewing of Chinese porcelain sherds in a museum catalog led him, his wife Saryl, and a team of researchers to the beachcombers who discovered the sherds. To Von der Porten, these sherds represented the possibility of something much more significant: one of the earliest known Manila galleon shipwrecks on the West Coast. In collaboration with the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico (INAH), Von der Porten and his colleagues undertook the first of many archaeological expeditions to investigate the site in 1999. Over twenty years, a team of American and Mexican archaeologists recovered thousands of artifacts and concluded that they had located the remains of the cargo from a Spanish galleon—most likely the San Juanillo of 1578. This copiously illustrated, highly accessible work offers an inside view of how archaeologists carefully assemble the evidence that allows scientific reconstruction of past events. Despite the grudging resistance of time, Von der Porten and his colleagues have resurrected the tale of the ill-fated San Juanillo to enrich our understanding and appreciation of the past.

Author: James D. Tracy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521652216
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 732

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The essays presented in this volume, first published in 2000, describe a phenomenon so widespread in human time and space that its importance is easily overlooked. City walls shaped the history of warfare; the mobilisation of manpower and resources needed to build them favoured some kinds of polities over others; and their massive strength, appropriately ornamented, created a visual language of authority. Previous collective volumes on the subject have dealt mainly with Europe, but the historians and art historians who collaborate here follow a comparative agenda. The millennial practice of wall building that branched out from the ancient Near East into India, Europe, and North Africa shows continuities and points of contact of which the makers of urban fortifications were scarcely aware; separate traditions in China, sub-Saharan Africa, and North America illustrate universal themes of defensive strategy and the symbolism of power, each time embedded in a distinctive local context.