This richly illustrated book provides a glimpse into the belief system and the material wealth of the social elite in pre-Imperial China through a close analysis of tomb contents and excavated bamboo texts. The point of departure is the textual and material evidence found in one tomb of an elite man buried in 316 BCE near a once wealthy middle Yangzi River valley metropolis. Particular emphasi…
In this exciting book, Ronald Suleski introduces daily life for the common people of China in the century from 1850 to 1950. They were semi-literate, yet they have left us written accounts of their hopes, fears, and values. They have left us the hand-written manuscripts (chaoben 抄本) now flooding the antiques markets in China. These documents represent a new and heretofore overlooked categor…
This open access book examines from the perspective of secularization. Since the publication of Max Weber's Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, how to realize modernization in developing countries has become an urgent problem to be demonstrated. Secularization has becoming endogenous power for Chinese modernization procedure, especially since 1978. However, to understand the foundat…
This open access book captures and elaborates on the skill of storytelling as one of the distinct leadership features of Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and the President of the People’s Republic of China. It gathers the stories included in Xi’s speeches on various occasions, where they conveyed the essence of China’s history and culture, its reform and d…
The Urban Sustainability Book Series is a valuable resource for sustainability and urban-related education and research. It offers an inter-disciplinary platform covering all four areas of practice, policy, education, research, and their nexus. The publications in this series are related to critical areas of sustainability, urban studies, planning, and urban geography.
How to deal with carbon emissions—a rare externality that spans a large time frame and geographical scope—is a difficult task for the world. This task is particularly challenging for China, mainly in that the country must coordinate dual objectives, including existing economic growth targets and the newly added carbon neutrality goal. Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, Chi…
This open access book discusses socio-environmental interactions in the middle to late Holocene, covering specific areas along the ancient Silk Road regions. Over twenty chapters provide insight into this topic from various disciplinary angles and perspectives, ranging from archaeology, paleoclimatology, antiquity, historical geography, agriculture, carving art and literacy. The Silk Road is a …
This open access book explores the past and present of Quanzhou (Zayton) and the rich diversity and tolerance that kindled Quanzhou’s innovativeness and helped it prosper both commercially and culturally—values that are today being embraced by China’s global trade partners.
This Open access book is a collection of interviews published by China News Service, a Beijing-based news agency, in its “West-East Talk” column. It has been divided into five sections: “Mutual Learning Among Civilizations,” “Hot Issues,” “About China,” “Sino-U.S. Relations” and “Cultural Collision”. The interviews are with more than 50 eminent scholars, scientists, poli…
This open access book asks why and how some of the developing countries have “emerged” under a set of similar global conditions, what led individual countries to choose the particular paths that led to their “emergence,” and what challenges confront them. If we are to understand the nature of major risks and uncertainties in the world, we must look squarely at the political and economic…