Han Shu
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Han Shu
The ''Book of Han'' or ''History of the Former Han'' (Qián Hàn Shū,《前汉书》) is a history of China finished in 111AD, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. It is also called the ''Book of Former Han''. The work was composed by Ban Gu (32–92 CE), an Eastern Han court official, with the help of his sister Ban Zhao, continuing the work of their father, Ban Biao. They modeled their work on the ''Records of the Grand Historian'', a cross-dynastic general history, but theirs was the first in this annals-biography form to cover a single dynasty. It is the best source, sometimes the only one, for many topics such as literature in this period. A second work, the ''Book of the Later Han'' covers the Eastern Han period from 25 to 220, and was composed in the fifth century by Fan Ye (398–445). Contents This history developed from a continuation of Sima Qian's ''Records of the Grand Historian'', in ...
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Ming Dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han Chinese, Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty), numerous rump state, rump regimes ruled by remnants of the House of Zhu, Ming imperial family—collectively called the Southern Ming—survived until 1662. The Ming dynasty's founder, the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the naval history of China, navy's dockyards in Nanjin ...
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Literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role. Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoir, letters, and the essay. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles or other printed information on a particular subject.''OED'' Etymologically, the term derives from Latin ''literatura/litteratura'' "learning, a writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters," from ''litera/littera'' "letter". In spite of this, the term has also been applied to spoken or s ...
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Emperor Hui Of Han
Emperor Hui of Han (Liu Ying 劉盈; 210 BC – 26 September 188 BC) was the second emperor of the Chinese Han dynasty. He is also known as Han Huidi (Chinese: 漢惠帝 ''Hàn Huìdì''). He was the second son of Emperor Gaozu (Liu Bang, of the Liu family), the first Han emperor, and Empress Lü from the powerful Lü clan (House of Lü). Han Huidi is generally remembered as a somewhat weak character dominated and terrorized by his mother, Lü (Lu Hou, who became Empress Dowager after she encouraged her husband to command personally a war in which he died from an arrow wound). Huidi was personally kind and generous, but unable to escape the impact of Lu Hou's viciousness. However he did end the laws of Burning of books and burying of scholars. He tried to protect Ruyi, Prince Yin of Zhao, his younger half-brother, from being murdered by Empress Dowager Lü, but failed. After that, he indulged himself in drinking and sex, and died at a relatively young age. Emperor Hui's wife wa ...
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Emperor Gaozu Of Han
Emperor Gaozu of Han (256 – 1 June 195 BC), born Liu Bang () with courtesy name Ji (季), was the founder and first emperor of the Han dynasty, reigning in 202–195 BC. His temple name was "Taizu" while his posthumous name was Emperor Gao, or Gaodi; "Gaozu of Han", derived from the ''Records of the Grand Historian'', is the common way of referring to this sovereign even though he was not accorded the temple name "Gaozu", which literally means "High Founder". Liu Bang was one of the few dynasty founders in Chinese history who was born into a peasant family. Prior to coming to power, Liu Bang initially served for the Qin dynasty as a minor law enforcement officer in his home town Pei County, within the conquered state of Chu. With the First Emperor's death and the Qin Empire's subsequent political chaos, Liu Bang renounced his civil service position and became an anti-Qin rebel leader. He won the race against fellow rebel leader Xiang Yu to invade the Qin heartlan ...
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Records Of The Three Kingdoms
The ''Records or History of the Three Kingdoms'', also known by its Chinese name as the Sanguo Zhi, is a Chinese historical text which covers the history of the late Eastern Han dynasty (c. 184–220 AD) and the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD). It is widely regarded as the official and authoritative source historical text for that period. Written by Chen Shou in the third century, the work synthesizes the histories of the rival states of Cao Wei, Shu Han and Eastern Wu in the Three Kingdoms period into a single compiled text. The ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'' is the main source of influence for the 14th century historical novel ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms,'' considered one of the great four novels of Chinese classical literature. Major chunks of the records have been translated into English, but the tome has yet to be fully translated. Origin and structure The ''Records of the Grand Historian'', ''Book of Han'' and '' Book of the Later Han'', and the ''Record ...
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Twenty-Four Histories
The ''Twenty-Four Histories'' (), also known as the ''Orthodox Histories'' (), are the Chinese official dynastic histories covering from the earliest dynasty in 3000 BC to the Ming dynasty in the 17th century. The Han dynasty official Sima Qian established many of the conventions of the genre, but the form was not fixed until much later. Starting with the Tang dynasty, each dynasty established an official office to write the history of its predecessor using official court records, partly in order to establish its own link to the earliest times. As fixed and edited in the Qing dynasty, the whole set contains 3,213 volumes and about 40 million words. It is considered one of the most important sources on Chinese history and culture. The title "Twenty-Four Histories" dates from 1775, which was the 40th year in the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. This was when the last volume, the ''History of Ming'', was reworked and a complete set of the histories was produced. Collection Inherit ...
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Burton Watson
Burton Dewitt Watson (June 13, 1925April 1, 2017) was an American sinologist, translator, and writer known for his English translations of Chinese and Japanese literature.Stirling 2006, pg. 92 Watson's translations received many awards, including the Gold Medal Award of the Translation Center at Columbia University in 1979, the PEN Translation Prize in 1982 for his translation with Hiroaki Sato of ''From the Country of Eight Islands: An Anthology of Japanese Poetry'', and again in 1995 for ''Selected Poems of Su Tung-p'o''. In 2015, at age 88, Watson was awarded the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation for his long and prolific translation career. Life and career Burton Watson was born on June 13, 1925, in New Rochelle, New York, where his father was a hotel manager. In 1943, at age 17, Watson dropped out of high school to join the U.S. Navy, and was stationed on repair vessels in the South Pacific during the final years of the Pacific Theatre of World War II. His ship was ...
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Nancy Lee Swann
Nancy Lee Swann (b. 9 Feb 1881 Tyler, Texas; d. 15 May 1966 El Paso, Texas) was an American Sinologist and curator of the Gest Memorial Chinese Library at Princeton University from 1931 until her retirement in 1948. Her best known scholarly publication were ''Pan Chao: Foremost Woman Scholar of China'', published by the American Historical Association in 1932 and ''Food and Money in Ancient China'', an annotated scholarly translation of the economic chapters of the ''Han Shu'', published by Princeton University Press in 1950. Swann was likely the first woman to receive a PhD in Chinese history in the United States. Education and early career Swann first studied at Sam Houston State Teachers College, taught school for four years, then returned to school. to graduate in June 1906, with a Bachelor of Arts degree from University of Texas, Austin, Phi Beta Kappa, She served for seven years as a Baptist missionary and Y.W.C.A. Secretary in Jinan, Shandong,. She returned to the United S ...
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