Selected Product:
| The Manchus (Peoples of Asia)
Paperback
Author: Pamela Kyle Crossley
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Release Date: 2002-06-10
ISBN-10: 0631235914
ISBN-13: 9780631235910
List Price: $40.95
Average Customer Rating:
 | |
God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan
ISBN-10: 0393315568
ISBN-13: 9780393315561
List Price:$17.95
The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han (History of Imperial China)
ISBN-10: 067402477X
ISBN-13: 9780674024779
List Price:$29.95
Precious Records: Women in China's Long Eighteenth Century
ISBN-10: 0804727449
ISBN-13: 9780804727440
List Price:$26.95
The Mongols (The Peoples of Europe)
ISBN-10: 1405135395
ISBN-13: 9781405135399
List Price:$29.95
The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China
ISBN-10: 0520221540
ISBN-13: 9780520221543
List Price:$23.95
|
To use our price comparison to get the cheapest price, please click on the "Find the Cheapest Price" button located above for The Manchus (Peoples of Asia) by Pamela Kyle Crossley (ISBN-10: 0631235914, ISBN-13: 9780631235910).
At this time we have not yet written a review for The Manchus (Peoples of Asia) by Pamela Kyle Crossley (ISBN-10: 0631235914, ISBN-13: 9780631235910). Please continue to keep checking back to this page as we are constantly adding reviews.
Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
This book relates the history of the Manchus, the rise and fall of their vast empire and their legacy today.
Finally a solid book on Jurchen/Manchu history!
| Customer Rating: | Read your typical history book covering Chinese history and you'll get a very distinct picture of the Jurchens and Manchus--about their conquest of china, the corruption of the Qing government (as if no other dynasty had corruption), of the power-hungry Aisio-gioro Nurgaci, founder of the Qing dynasty, and their alien, steppe-nomadic ways. Most Chinese history books have little good or substantive to say about this north-east Asian culture whose term for their religious priesthood was adopted by the West, "Shaman" (Chinese, "saman").
This book takes all that mythology and anti-Manchu rehtoric and blasts it to pieces with a compelling story of a people who have rarely been studied objectively and as a culture separate from the Mongols and Chinese. Nurgaci was not the man of the myths we've heard and never called himself Emperor. In fact for most of his life his title was "beile of the Jianzhou Jurchens". He was a great lord and chieftain of his lineage, but not even an autocrat in his authority, ruling jointly with his brother, Surgaci, for many years.
Besides the myths about Nuragi, many cultural myths are also dispelled. One major one is the assumption that the Manchus were nomads with a steppe culture analogous to the Mongol culture. This book explains how and why this assumption is wrong and is essential to anyone who wants to know the real Manchu people.
I'm only 3 chapters into the book and already know I need to reread it. there's a lot of information for the student of Jurchen and Manchu history!
WELL DONE!! |
Packs a punch
| Customer Rating: | I read this book after Evelyn Rawski's "The Last Emperors" and it did answer & clarified a lot questions I had with regards to the Manchus and how they were like before entering China proper. The chapter on Nurhachi was good as was the section on the inevitable power struggle between Cixi and Guangxu (my only wish that this was elaborated further).
Crossley's book is highly recommended for both casual & serious historians alike. My suggestion is to read this first before Rawski's "The Last Emperors" |
Not an academic book
| Customer Rating: | | I visited to pick up the paperback of this book, and saw this perplexing comment below. This book and The Last Emperor are apples and oranges. This is a popular book (I got my original copy from History Book Club) and intended for reader's with a general interest, or maybe beginning historians. The book by Evelyn S. Rawski is an academic title, very thorough and erudite. But also the books are not on the same subject. Rawski is about the Manchu emperors, their courts and palaces. The Manchus is much more general. Please do not get confused into thinking that these two books are on the same subject. |
There is a more updated book
| Customer Rating: | I have read a more recent book Evelyn Rawski's "The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions " in which she discusses the context between her book and "The Manchus". The two books are probably quite similar but I think that Rawski's book would contain much more undisclosed material.
I have decided not to change the rating on this book in the interest of fair play. |
Surprisingly relevant
| Customer Rating: | | It's funny to note that at many times the Qing dynasty faced many of the same problems that we see today: overpopulation, government corruption, war against drugs. So much of what we think of as Chinese is also Manchu and was introduced rather recently. Well writen and clear all the way through. |
|
