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From the Hall of Spiritual Light to the Wuliang Ancestral Hall, by Miao Zhe, Life, Reading, and Xinzhi Triptych Bookstore, 2021
This book explores the visual culture of the Han Dynasty, and the author is good at both theory and evidence, so he can be profound without being caught in the chisel, and moderation without being superficial. For example, when discussing the meaning of "Confucius seeing Laozi" commonly seen in Han Dynasty portraits, in the past scholars mostly believed that the main purpose was to respect Laozi according to the "Records of History", and the author pointed out that the composition and order of the disciples of Confucius in the image were inconsistent with the "History of History", and the "History" did not flourish in the era when the images were produced, and then argued that the theme came from the tradition of "the king has a teacher" in han Dynasty classics: with Confucius as the king and Lao Tzu as the auxiliary, the evidence is conclusive and convincing. Through a series of sophisticated evidence and interpretations, the author abandons the old theory of emphasizing Han Dynasty portraits as civilian art, believing that portraits embody the "downward infiltration" and "internalization" of imperial ideology. Wang Mang, the key figure in the construction of this ideology, is naturally the focus of the discourse, and the author compares him to Augustus in Rome, both of whom solve their own problems of "legitimacy" through material-visual production at the state level. Behind the rise of Wang Mang's era, from cities and buildings to ceremonial vessels and daily utensils, is a set of mechanical universe-historical schemas derived from scripture, no matter how absurd the basis is, but the interior is a strict system of its own, and this system was inherited by the Guangwu Emperor to a considerable extent, and then modularized, which not only became the basis of the visual culture of the Eastern Han Dynasty, but also influenced the direction of Chinese painting in the following millennium. The author does get to the point.
When The Economy Meets the Law, by Qiu Pengsheng, Zhejiang University Press, 2021
Huang Renyu famously concluded that Ming and Qing China did not embark on the road of modernization as britain did because it failed to develop a national social structure that could carry out "numerical management", and the crux of this "institutional failure" lay in the tradition of replacing the legal system with morality. This view is considered a typical "Western-centrism" and is often criticized by commentators. In fact, no matter what kind of ideology that ultimately denies self-interest, it is impossible to suppress "economic rationality" for a long time, and once society returns to normalcy, ideologies that violate human nature will be reduced to slogans, and we obviously cannot find really effective ideas from such slogans. The author of this book understands this meaning and presents the evolution and interaction of economic organization, legal system, and cultural concepts at that time by analyzing the Suzhou merchant group, Susong cotton cloth processing industry, Yunnan copper industry, Chongqing shipping industry, debt and partnership litigation, and business book ethics in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The author does not draw general conclusions, and has no intention of prescribing a "prescription" for reality – after all, history is different from physics, and it is impossible to find key variables through repeated experiments – but the subtle and complex characteristics of each time period, region, and industry revealed by the author are enough to allow our eyes to see through the fog of grand vocabulary and clearly and truly observe the context of history.
Bloodline: The Family of the Chronicles, by Chen Zhenghong, Zhonghua Bookstore, 2021
This book is the second in the author's "Historia" series, which has been widely acclaimed and has entered many good books. The title "Bloodline" is a summary of the family part of the Chronicle of History. The author is a well-known scholar with profound skills, and his pen is rigorous and rigorous, and he does not mix any unsubstantiated conjectures and jokes. In fact, for the "History", the true understanding can get the greatest lesson, and this book is the best navigation. The author said: "In the Taishi Gong Self-Introduction, Sima Qian... The word 'Jia' was specially used to commend the peculiarities of most of the family, and what he "jia" was almost all the virtuous people and their virtues in the family surname, and the purpose should be only one, that is, to show everyone in the unique way of historians that supported the endless and endless life of human society, in addition to human biological characteristics, there were also good emotions and morals based on common cultural genes. "It seems ordinary, but it is really a word of insight.
Prosperity and Decline, Sun Xiaofei, Shaanxi People's Publishing House, 2021
The book is written in prose about the rise and fall of capitals throughout the ages, and the author is familiar with urban theory, and some passages are quite ingenious, such as quoting Lefebvre's "Blissful Space" and Bataye's "Surplus Energy" to describe the Qinhuai River, an area opened up for sensory pleasure that has become the soul of the city. The impression given to me in this book is that the construction of the city is an extremely large project, although the wealth of the emperor, it is impossible to build a city out of thin air, so the successful capital is mostly built by the guidance of the situation. This book is beautifully printed, well-bound, and the pictures are particularly beautiful, which is addictive and collectible.
Cheng Yu black