From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Fri May 11 2001 - 06:07:13 MDT
In a message dated 5/10/01 10:56:05 PM Central Daylight Time,
CurtAdams@aol.com writes:
> Do you have any sourcces you can point me to on the conservatising cultural
> innovations of the Ming or the sources of Sung technical dynamism?
The best Chinese history I've read recently is "The Search for Modern China",
by Jonathan D. Spence. Spence picks up the thread of Chinese history at a
point later than we're discussing, in the "high Ching" period, but does talk
a little about the Ming antecedents of the Confucian orthodoxy that reigned
supreme in the high Ching. He also provides a quick sketch of the senescence
of Ming institutions that led to the successful Manchurian invasion of North
China that gave rise to the Ching dynasty.
Over-all, the book is very well written and an excellent introduction to the
compelling story of China's initial exposure and reaction to the swiftly
modernizing West, a subject of interest to extropians because that story
provides insight into the nature of Western modernism through the contrasting
case of China during the period when the ideals of the Enlightenment were
transforming Europe, America and Anglic Asia.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://www.gregburch.net -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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