Volume IThe Silk Manuscripts from Zidanku, Changsha (Hunan), are the only pre-Imperial Chinese manuscripts on silk found to-date. Dating to the turn from the 4th to the 3rd centuries BC (Late Warring States period), they contain several texts concerning basic cosmological concepts, including one manuscript (Manuscript 1) with a diagrammatic arrangement and surrounded by pictorial illustrations. As such, they constitute a unique source of information complementing and going beyond what is known from transmitted texts.This is the first in a two-volume monograph on the Zidanku manuscripts, reflecting almost four decades of research by Professor Li Ling of Peking University. While the philological study and translation of the manuscript texts is the subject of Volume Two, this first volume presents the archaeological context andhistory of transmission of the physical manuscripts. It records how they were taken from their original place of interment in the 1940s and taken to the United Stat
During the nineteenth century, the transpacific world underwent profound transformation, due to the transition from sail to steam navigation that was accompanied by a concomitant reconfiguration of power. This book explores the ways in which diverse Mexican, British, Chinese, and Japanese interests participated, particularly during Porfirio Díaz’s presidency at the peak of Mexico’s participation in the steam network: from its 1860s outset through a time of many revolutionary changes ending with the World War, the Mexican Revolution, the opening of the Panama Canal, and the introduction of a new maritime technology based on vessels run by oil. These transoceanic exchanges, generated within these new geographies of power, contributed not only to the formation of a transpacific region but also to refashioning the Mexican national imaginary. With transnationalism, global and migration studies as its main framework, this study draws upon a dazzling array of primary sources to center Mexico’
ONE OF THE MOST SPOKEN DIALECTS in China, Southeast Asia, and globally, Cantonese was nevertheless deemed a local dialect enjoying little prestige among the intellectuals. Not much was recorded in official documents or gazetteers about the early history of Hong Kong. The Cantonese language and its origin remained much of a mystery until the mid-20th century when scholars started to accord it with increasing attention. Thanks to dedicated efforts of early missionaries, pedagogues, and linguists, we can now trace back the evolution of modern Cantonese since the 19th century— how differences in sounds, words, and grammar distinguish the old from contemporary speech today. In this book, Hung-nin Samuel Cheung, an acclaimed scholar on the study of Cantonese, offers profound insights to various firsthand century-old materials including language manuals, Bible translations, and maps of Hong Kong, with findings that will be useful for ongoing efforts to study the development of