At a time when China-Southeast Asia relationships are undergoing profound changes, it is pleasing to have a volume which examines the interactions between China and the polities and societies to the south through time. With multiple aims of exploring the relations between northern Chinese cultures and those of the south, examining the cultural plurality of areas which are today parts of Southern China, and illuminating the relations between Sinitic and non-Sinitic societies, the volume is broad in concept and content. Within these extensive rubrics, this edited collection further interrogates the nature of Asian polities and their historiography, the constitution of Chineseness, imperial China's southern expansions, cultural hybridity, economic relations, regional systems and ethnic interactions across East Asia. The editors Victor H. Mair and Liam C. Kelley are to be congratulated for bringing together such a wealth of contributions offering nascent interpretations and broad overviews, set within the overarching historical and contemporary contexts provided through Wang Gungwu's introduction.- Dr Geoffrey Wade, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University

This book examines the emergence of imperial state in East Asia during the period ca. 400 BCE–200 CE as a network-based process, showing how the geography of early interregional contacts south of the Yangzi River informed the directions of Sinitic state expansion. Drawing from an extensive collection of sources including transmitted textual records, archaeological evidence, excavated legal manuscripts, and archival documents from Liye, this book demonstrates the breadth of human and material resources available to the empire builders of an early imperial network throughout southern East Asia – from institutions and infrastructures, to the relationships that facilitated circulation. This network is shown to have been essential to the consolidation of Sinitic imperial rule in the sub-tropical zone south of the Yangzi against formidable environmental, epidemiological, and logistical odds. This is also the first study to explore how the interplay between an imperial network and alternative frameworks of long-distance interaction in ancient East Asia shaped the political-economic trajectory of the Sinitic world and its involvement in Eurasian globalization. Contributing to debates around imperial state formation, the applicability of world-system models and the comparative study of empires, The Imperial Network in Ancient China will be of significant interest to students and scholars of East Asian studies, archaeology and history.

In this innovative study, Erica Fox Brindley examines how, during the period 400 BCE–50 CE, Chinese states and an embryonic Chinese empire interacted with peoples referred to as the Yue/Viet along its southern frontier. Brindley provides an overview of current theories in archaeology and linguistics concerning the peoples of the ancient southern frontier of China, the closest relations on the mainland to certain later Southeast Asian and Polynesian peoples. Through analysis of warring states and early Han textual sources, she shows how representations of Chinese and Yue identity invariably fed upon, and often grew out of, a two-way process of centering the self while de-centering the other. Examining rebellions, pivotal ruling figures from various Yue states, and key moments of Yue agency, Brindley demonstrates the complexities involved in identity formation and cultural hybridization in the ancient world, and highlights the ancestry of cultures now associated with southern China and Vietnam.

The Southern Tang was one of China’s minor dynasties and one of the great states in China in the tenth century. Although often regarded as one of several states preceding the much better known Song dynasty (960-1279), the Southern Tang dynasty was in fact the key state in this period, preserving cultural values and artefacts from the former great Tang dynasty (618-907) which were to form the basis of Song rule, and thereby presenting the Song with a direct link to the Tang and it traditions. Drawing mainly on primary Chinese sources, this is the first book in English to provide a comprehensive overview of the Southern Tang, and full coverage of military, cultural and political history in the period. It focuses on a successful, albeit short-lived, attempt to set up an independent regional state in the modern provinces of Jiangxi and Jiangsu, and establishes the Southern Tang dynasty in its own right. It follows the rise of the Southern Tang state to become the predominant claimant of the Tang heritage and the expansionist policies of the second ruler culminating in the occupation and annexation of the two of the Southern Tang’s neighbours, Min (Fujian) and Chu (Hunan). Finally the narrative describes the decline of the dynasty under its last ruler, the famous poet Li Yu, and its ultimate surrender to the Song dynasty.

Just over a thousand years ago, the Song dynasty emerged as the most advanced civilization on earth. Within two centuries, China was home to nearly half of all humankind. In this concise history, we learn why the inventiveness of this era has been favorably compared with the European Renaissance, which in many ways the Song transformation surpassed. With the chaotic dissolution of the Tang dynasty, the old aristocratic families vanished. A new class of scholar-officials—products of a meritocratic examination system—took up the task of reshaping Chinese tradition by adapting the precepts of Confucianism to a rapidly changing world. Through fiscal reforms, these elites liberalized the economy, eased the tax burden, and put paper money into circulation. Their redesigned capitals buzzed with traders, while the education system offered advancement to talented men of modest means. Their rationalist approach led to inventions in printing, shipbuilding, weaving, ceramics manufacture, mining, and agriculture. With a realist’s eye, they studied the natural world and applied their observations in art and science. And with the souls of diplomats, they chose peace over war with the aggressors on their borders. Yet persistent military threats from these nomadic tribes—which the Chinese scorned as their cultural inferiors—redefined China’s understanding of its place in the world and solidified a sense of what it meant to be Chinese. The Age of Confucian Rule is an essential introduction to this transformative era. “A scholar should congratulate himself that he has been born in such a time” (Zhao Ruyu, 1194).

The volume is organised into three parts. The first section highlights the writings of Wang in the field of higher education. There are 24 selected articles in this collection, many of which were previously published in prominent journals. Several essays originated as keynote speeches at conferences. Spanning over a period of more than three decades from 1971 (when he was with the Australian National University) to 2008 (when he was with the East Asian Institute), Wang shares in the essays his perspectives on a broad range of topics --

Laos, Paul T. Cohen.