Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China: The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics

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Название: Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China: The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics

Автор: Коллектив

Издательство : Harvard University Asia Center

Год: 2006

Формат: pdf

Страниц: 677

ISBN: 0814778968

Размер : 21 Mb

Язык: Английский

"The stereotype is utterly entrenched: Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–1125) devoted himself to painting birds and flowers and to producing calligraphy in his distinctive calligraphic style in the years that the Jurchen peoples pressed down on China’s northern border. Neglecting his duties, he abdicated just in time to see north China fall to the Jurchen armies.

"Almost every point, this pathbreaking volume contends, is wrong. Huizong was completely committed to governing his empire. Yes, his concept of governance differed from modern understandings; ritual and music occupied a central place, but he tried to implement real-world reforms. Huizong’s ministers extended the New Policies of the Wang Anshi era (1069–1085) to a greater extent than historians have realized. Moreover, the emperor could not have devoted himself to the arts because he did not actually paint the paintings, do the calligraphy, or write the poems attributed to him (his assistants did and then stamped their work with the imperial seal).