A CONCISE COMMENTARY ON MONOGRAPHS ON THE WESTERN REGIONS IN THE OFFICIAL HISTORY BOOKS OF THE WESTERN & EASTERN HAN, WEI, JIN, SOUTHERN & NORTHERN DYNASTIES是同作者《两汉魏晋南北朝正史西域传要注》一书的英文版，是作者为两汉魏晋南北朝正史西域传有关西域的记载提供的一个系统的注解。作者长期研究西域史和古代中外关系史、塞种、贵霜、嚈哒以及两汉魏晋南北朝与西域关系史，在此基础上，作者就各篇西域传所见西域文化、宗教、习俗、制度，以及人种、语言、文字作了分门别类的研究，结集而成《两汉魏晋南北朝正史西域传研究》，再依据研究的结论，撰写了《两汉魏晋南北朝正史西域传要注》一书，为两汉魏晋南北朝正史西域传有关西域的记载提供的一个系统的注解。

A STUDY OF MONOGRAPHS ON THE WESTERN REGIONS IN THE OFFICIAL HISTORY BOOKS OF THE WESTERN & EASTERN HAN, WEI, JIN, SOUTHERN & NORTHERN DYNASTIES是同作者《两汉魏晋南北朝正史西域传研究》一书的英文版，是作者长期研究西域史和古代中外关系史，对塞种、贵霜、嚈哒以及两汉魏晋南北朝与西域关系史的论着。作者就各篇西域传所见西域文化、宗教、习俗、制度，以及人种、语言、文字作了分门别类的研究，结集而成《两汉魏晋南北朝正史西域传研究》。本书和《两汉南北朝正史西域传要注》为姊妹篇。两书不仅为两汉魏晋南北朝正史西域传有关西域的记载提供了一个系统的注解，而且首次解读了两汉魏晋南北朝正史西域传的认知和阐述系统。这对于深入理解两汉魏晋南北朝的政治、经济和文化等均有参考价值，其意义已经逸出了西域史研究的范畴。

The term antiquarianism refers to engagement with the material heritage of the past—an engagement that preceded the modern academic discipline of archaeology. Antiquarian activities result in the elaboration of particular social behaviors and the production of tools for exploring the collective memory. This book is the first to compare antiquarianism in a global context, examining its roots in the ancient Near East, its flourishing in early modern Europe and East Asia, and its manifestations in nonliterate societies of Melanesia and Polynesia. By establishing wide-reaching geographical and historical perspectives, the essays reveal the universality of antiquarianism as an embodiment of the human mind and open new avenues for understanding the representation of the past, from ancient societies to the present.

Due to the frontierization of nation-states, maritime historians have tended to ignore the northern Bay of Bengal. Yet, this marginal region, now dispersed over the four nation-states of India, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh, was not marginal in the past. Until recently, however, historians have concentrated largely on the 'big four': the Gujarat, Malabar, Coromandel and western Bengal coasts. Extreme eastern South Asia -- Bengal and the lands to its north-east fanning into Burma and China, or modern India's north-east and beyond -- is the focus of Pelagic Passageways. This regional unit, including diverse topographic features: plains, forests, estuaries, deltas, rivers, mountains, lakes, plateaus and remote passes, oscillates between unity and fragmentation, between centrality and marginality in the larger space of the Bay of Bengal. To attempt a history of this space is indeed challenging. There is not one, but two deltas here: the western delta, corresponding to present West Bengal in India and centred now on Kolkata, and the south-eastern delta, in present Bangladesh, centred on Dhaka, and running into Arakan. Not merely in terms of location, but on a historical axis too, the two deltas are vastly different as they have followed disparate trajectories, dictated in part by their geographies. Pelagic Passageways, therefore, questions the conventional fault line, located on the south-eastern Bengal delta, between the historiography of South and South-East Asia. Concentrating on commodity and currency flows, travel, trade, routes and interactive networks Pelagic Passageways visualizes the cultural space of the northern Bay of Bengal as embracing upland landlocked areas -- Ava, Yunnan, the Tripuri, Dimasa and Ahom states -- not usually seen as part of maritime history. This collection of essays suggests that they too were a part of the social and commercial networks of the Indian Ocean. While these countries literally fell off the map, this volume proposes that we see these areas instead as crossroads, mediating flows between the land-dwelling and aquatic worlds.

This volume introduces readers to classical Chinese literature from its beginnings (ca. 10th century BCE) to the tenth century CE. It asks basic questions such as: How did reading and writing practices change over these two millennia? How did concepts of literature evolve? What were the factors that shaped literary production and textual transmission? How do traditional bibliographic categories, modern conceptions of genre, and literary theories shape our understanding of classical Chinese literature? What are the recurrent and evolving concerns of writings within the period under purview? What are the dimensions of human experience they address? Why is classical Chinese literature important for our understanding of pre-modern East Asia? How does the transmission of this literature in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam define cultural boundaries? And what, in turn, can we learn from the Chinese-style literatures of Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, about Chinese literature? In addressing these questions, the Oxford Handbook of Classical Chinese Literature departs from standard literary histories and sourcebooks. It does not simply categorize literary works according to periods, authors, or texts. Its goal is to offer a new conceptual framework for thinking about classical Chinese literature by defining a four-part structure. The first section discusses the basics of literacy and includes topics such as writing systems, manuscript culture, education, and loss and preservation in textual transmission. It is followed by a second section devoted to conceptions of genre, textual organization, and literary signification throughout Chinese history. A third section surveys literary tropes and themes. The final section takes us beyond China to the surrounding cultures that adopted Chinese culture and produced Chinese style writing adapted to their own historical circumstances. The volume is sustained by a dual foci: the recuperation of historical perspectives for the period it surveys and the attempt to draw connections between past and present, demonstrating how the viewpoints and information in this volume yield insights into modern China and east Asia.