Middle Imperial China, 900–1350
A New History

A highly readable and engaging survey of China's history from the tenth through the mid-fourteenth centuries.

Linda Walton (Author)

9781108420686, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 August 2023

434 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.768 kg

'[An] impressive synthesis of previous scholarship that offers a well-balanced survey of China's mid-imperial period. … Undergraduate and graduate students seriously interested in this important period, as well as educators at all levels, will find this book invaluable.' Sukhee Lee, Journal of Chinese History

In this highly readable and engaging work, Linda Walton presents a dynamic survey of China's history from the tenth through the mid-fourteenth centuries from the founding of the Song dynasty through the Mongol conquest when Song China became part of the Mongol Empire and Marco Polo made his famous journey to the court of the Great Khan. Adopting a thematic approach, she highlights the political, social, economic, intellectual, and cultural changes and continuities of the period often conceptualized as 'Middle Imperial China'. Particular emphasis is given to themes that inform scholarship on world history: religion, the state, the dynamics of empire, the transmission of knowledge, the formation of political elites, gender, and the family. Consistent coverage of peoples beyond the borders – Khitan, Tangut, Jurchen, and Mongol, among others – provides a broader East Asian context and introduces a more nuanced, integrated representation of China's past.

Introduction: Middle Imperial China in East Asian and world History
1. The turbulent tenth century: transforming the East Asian world
2. Song in a multipolar world
3. Schooling, state, and society in song and Jin
4. An economic revolution?
5. Cities and urban life
6. Religious transformations
7. Ways of knowing: learning and knowledge
8. The arts of culture
9. Gendered and generational lives: women, men, children and families
10. Mapping the built and natural environment
11. Sustaining life and healing bodies: food and medicine
12. The Mongol Yuan dynasty in China
13. Yuan China in the Mongol Eurasian Empire.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]