The Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography

by fulltimestudent 4 Replies latest social current

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  fulltimestudent

  Went to the book launch for this 3 volume set yesterday, at the Art Gallery of NSW. (note Vol.4 dealing with modern personalities will be released in about 2 months.

  Amazon has it on sale for $565, so I guess there will not be a lot of private buyers. However, if you have a lazy five hundred bucks to spare, it would be a useful book to aid your understanding of the influences, the native and foreign dynastic and cultural strands, that have formed modern China.

  There are over 100 entries, contributed by a wide cross section of modern Chinese scholars. The editor is Professor Kerry Brown, the executive director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. You can find his bio at: http://sydney.edu.au/china_studies_centre/en/staff/kerry-brown.shtml

  The Amazon blurb says:

  The Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography, the first publication of its kind since 1898, is the work of more than one hundred internationally recognized experts from nearly a dozen countries. It has been designed to satisfy the growing thirst of students, researchers, professionals, and general readers for knowledge about China. It makes the entire span of Chinese history manageable by introducing the reader to emperors, politicians, poets, writers, artists, scientists, explorers, and philosophers who have shaped and transformed China over the course of five thousand years. In 135 entries, ranging from 1,000 to 8,000 words and written by some of the world's leading China scholars, the Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography takes the reader from the important (even if possibly mythological) figures of ancient China to Communist leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. The in-depth essays provide rich historical context, and create a compelling narrative that weaves abstract concepts and disparate events into a coherent story. Cross-references between the articles show the connections between times, places, movements, events, and individuals.

  The three-volume set includes a range of appendices, including a timeline of key events, a pronunciation guide, a bibliography, lists of rulers and other prominent people, and other supplemental materials for students of Chinese history and culture. Volume Four (which is published separately) focuses on key individuals from the People s Republic of China s post-opening era, starting in 1979.

  If you wish to understand who a certain person in Chinese history was, and what he/she did, then this dictionary will serve you well. If you have not got a spare $550, then go see you local library and talk them into buying it for their reference shelf.

  The web reference for the book is: http://www.berkshirepublishing.com/product.aspx?projid=88
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  RottenRiley

  Full-time, can you help me with Chinese Culture if you have time? I want to learn the language and I am willing to trade any of my skills I have to reciprocate. I am fluent in four languages and my Mandarin is terrible, have you ever had a student?

  Your title is something I think we all should be through out life, a Full-Time Student. I am still attending College, I started in 1982 and won't finish this side of the Grave. Kind Regards to you!
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  fulltimestudent

  RR

  Full-time, can you help me with Chinese Culture if you have time? I want to learn the language and I am willing to trade any of my skills I have to reciprocate. I am fluent in four languages and my Mandarin is terrible, have you ever had a student?

  Your title is something I think we all should be through out life, a Full-Time Student. I am still attending College, I started in 1982 and won't finish this side of the Grave. Kind Regards to you!

  Thank you, RR for your kind wishes. I reciprocate.

  I think its wonderful that you have a desire to be a life long student. We likely 'thought' we were life long students as Jws (I did- I imagined that Yahweh would teach me new things for eternity). But we really were not that good as students. Why? Because we lacked a rigorous questioning attitude. I noted someone else today citing the fact that scientists can be wrong as evidence of something or the other to do with his/her faith. This poster totally disregarded the fact that its a questioning attitude that has been the foundation of scientific advancement. And we were encouraged not to do that, but to become rote learners. But, I feel the need to point out that this style of learning was established in early Christianity by the use of catechisms - and the JW practise is just a continuation of that style.

  In contrast, about a thousand years ago, the Chinese scholar Cheng Yi encouraged a different attitude in students saying:

  A student must first of all learn to doubt

  (I'm quoting from Wing-Tsit Chan's, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy-Princeton University Press 1973)

  Sadly, a lot of Chinese learning degenerated into rote learning also, and it may be a failing in modern Chinese education that knowledge is pushed into a student's head).

  But, in response to your question, I could not do justice to your needs. I like to share some aspects of Chinese culture (as I do). First because Chinese thought is an interesting alternative to our Judeao-Christian foundation, although honestly it is likely to be more Hellenic that we acknowledge. Second, because there's a need to understand something more about a nation that in a mere 30 years as develped from third world to almost first world.

  But I post spasmodically, and am under no pressure to do anything. I try to avoid pressuring myself (it sends my blood pressure soaring -haha) and permits me to focus on what I'm studying. This semester I'm only doing one study unit, as I want to get to China at some point - plus I feel a need to do a refresher course in Autocad, and try to get some more work to top up my sagging bank account.

  But I'm always pleased to discuss (as I have time) any Asian topic.
• 

  fulltimestudent

  In my haste to post yesterday, I constructed a sentence badly.

  But, in response to your question, I could not do justice to your needs. I like to share some aspects of Chinese culture (as I do). First because Chinese thought is an interesting alternative to our Judeao-Christian foundation, although honestly it is likely to be more Hellenic that we acknowledge.

  I wanted to say that the Judeao-Christian thought as a foundation for western society also owes a great deal to Hellenic thought that stretches back to the heyday of Athens and Greek philosophy. Early Christian thinkers, for example (for whatever reason) started to borrow from Plato's ideas from say the third C.
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  RottenRiley

  Here a few books I picked up to better understand the Chinese and Asian Culture, if you can throw any other books to help me under the mind of the Chinese I would appreciate that. I need to post this first before I can post the hyperlink, don't understand why my Brower does not have the needed button to paste this information.

  For language learning, I bought volumes 1-4 http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Chinese-Reader-Workbook-Vol/dp/7561912528/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391385292&sr=1-3&keywords=new+practical+chinese+reader+3

  Beijing's style of pushing the student off Pinyin is awesome, how long did it take you to learn the basic Hanzi? It's a art form and unfortunately I don't have the best handwritting skills, so my Hanzi is not as good as the writers in the book.

  http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Chinese-Poetry-An-Anthology/dp/0374531900

  http://www.amazon.com/The-Analects-Confucius/dp/1613822464

  "The Bitter Sea" by Charles N. Li (Coming of Age In A CHina Before Mao)."

  "The Lotus Singers" short stories from Asia.

  For Christianity I enjoy the books written by the author of "City of Emerald Lights", they were missionaries in China before 1900s, the accounts of how they interacted with the Chinese people of the North is how Christians should have behaved. They did not pressure anyone to join their church, they arrived as nurses (husband and wife) and served the people and by their conduct and not a bunch of Watchtowers cramming doctrine down people's throats! They were great human beings, I cried reading this book, they are how Christians ought to behave, not some pious Doomsday Preachers with smiles "everyone is going to die!"