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Understanding Imperial China: Dynasties, Life, and Culture
- Narrated by: The Great Courses
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
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Understanding Imperial China: Dynasties, Life, and Culture
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Publisher's Summary
A knowledge of China's imperial history is vital for any understanding of its present, as modern China is linked in many ways to the extraordinary culture of its empire. These 24 lectures take you to the heart of life during China's imperial era, through the lives of individual subjects of all social ranks. Across the arc of the course, you'll witness what daily life was like for government bureaucrats, for scholars, for women of the court, for soldiers, merchants, craftspeople, courtesans, imperial cooks, and many others - all against the backdrop of the diversity, the genius, and the majesty of imperial China.
You'll hear about such memorable sights as the grand boulevards; splendorous palaces; imposing temples of Chang'an, the medieval world's greatest city; and the Qingming Shanghetu, a 17-foot painted scroll that gloriously portrays Song Dynasty life. And you'll meet unforgettable human beings, whose lives vividly reveal the world around them, such as Ban Zhao, Han-era woman of letters, poet, scholar, and teacher; Tao Yuanming, Daoist luminary and the empire's first great poet; Zhu Yuanzhang, powerful warlord and founder of the Ming Dynasty; and Hong Xiuquan, visionary reformer and architect of the religiously inspired Taiping Rebellion.
Understanding Imperial China: Dynasties, Life, and Culture is your passport to this incredible, historic world.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.What listeners say about Understanding Imperial China: Dynasties, Life, and Culture
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mark Henwood
- 02-02-2020
Interesting course
Took me back to the eight years I spent in China. I would have liked to listen to the course while I was living there...
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Bkr
- 15-01-2023
Brilliant and Engrossing
Brought an amazing and complex history to life. Would be better still without the unnecessary and repetitive statement at the start of each chapter
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
- Callum Tyler
- 05-04-2022
Strange Start, Lacks Context
Only listened to the first two chapters so maybe it picked up afterwards. The opening lecture focuses on the rather odd choice of myth debunking about opium (downplaying it's addictiveness, normalising it in the context of the era, telling the audience opium aka morphine works for the lecturer who uses it for pain relief) usage in the last few centuries in China without really linking it to broader themes of the course or anything that is to follow. The second chapter opens naturally at one of the first great Chinese emperor. Having heard other speakers talk of this emperor, I was interested to hear their take. However they pretty much launched immediately in with little context or grounding of the cultural, economic, religious, etc background in which this emperor operated. The author is primarily a lecturer on war and strategic policy with history as one of their loves (nothing wrong with that) but I don't think these lectures have the benefit from having years of experience in presenting similar lectures on such a topic.
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