The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family—collectively called the Southern Ming—survived until 1662.
David Der-wei Wang is a literary historian, critic, and the Edward C. Henderson Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University. He has written extensively on post-late Qing Chinese fiction, comparative literary theory, colonial and modern Taiwanese literature, diasporic literature, Chinese Malay literature, Sinophone literature, and Chinese intellectuals and artists in the 20th century. His notions such as "repressed modernities", "post-loyalism", and "modern lyrical tradition" are instrumental and widely discussed in the field of Chinese literary studies.
Philip A. Kuhn was an American historian of China and the Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History and of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.
Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World is a book by the Canadian historian Professor Timothy Brook, in which he explores the roots of world trade in the 17th century through six paintings by the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer. It focuses especially on growing ties between Europe and the rest of the world and the impact of China on the world, during what Brook sees as an "age of innovation" and improvisation.
Death by a Thousand Cuts is a book by the historians Timothy Brook and Gregory Blue and scientific researcher Jérôme Bourgon which examines the use of slow slicing or lingchi, a form of torture and capital punishment practised in mid- and late-Imperial China from the tenth century until its abolition in 1905.
The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China is an influential and frequently cited book which explores the economic and cultural history and the "influence of economic change on social and cultural life" in China during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). The book is written by Timothy Brook, a Canadian historian of China (Sinology). The work won the Joseph Levenson Book Prize of 2000.
Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China is a history book which explores the relationship between Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism during the 17th and 18th centuries in China ; tourism to Chinese Buddhist sites, and the patronage of Buddhist monasteries in China by Buddhist and Neo-Confucian gentry during this period. This philanthropy allowed these patrons to "publicize [their] elite status outside the state realm" and promoted the growth of a society of gentry.
Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement is a history book which investigates the conflict between the Chinese democracy movement in Beijing and the communist-controlled People's Liberation Army, culminating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in Beijing.
The Chinese State in Ming Society is a history book which investigates the role of the state in China in the Ming dynasty ; the interface between the state and society, and the effect of the state on ordinary people.
Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China is a history book which investigates collaboration between the Chinese elites and Japanese, following the attack on the Chinese city of Shanghai in August 1937, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, and during the subsequent military occupation of the Yangtze River Delta in China by Japan.
Mawlānā Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh was an envoy of the Timurid ruler of Persia and Transoxania, Mirza Shahrukh, to the court of the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty of China, known for an important account he wrote of his embassy. His name has also been transcribed in English works as Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Naqqaš, Ghiyasu'd-Din Naqqash, Ghiyāthu'd-Dīn Naqqāsh, or Ghiyathuddin Naqqash.
Michael A. Szonyi is Professor of Chinese History at Harvard University and the director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. His research focuses on the local history of southeast China, especially in the Ming dynasty, the history of Chinese popular religion, and Overseas Chinese history.
The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties is a history book about life and events in China in the Yuan and Ming dynasties, between the Mongol invasion of the Confucian empire in the 1270s and the invasion by the Manchu from the Eurasian Steppe, following extreme cold and drought in the 1630s.
Li Rihua (1565–1635) was a Chinese bureaucrat, artist and art critic from Jiaxing, during the late Ming Dynasty. He wrote an extensive diary, the Weishuixuan riji, from 1609 to 1616, which detailed his many acquisitions as an art collector. The diary is so named because Li had a reputation as a connoisseur of tea, and was particularly skilled at selecting the best water with which to brew it. For a time, he was married to the courtesan Xue Susu, and wrote colophons for several of her paintings.
The siege of Lüshun was a military conflict between the Later Jin and Ming dynasty. In the summer of 1634 the Jin attacked and conquered the port city of Lüshun from Ming.
Yunnan under Ming rule saw the continuation of the tusi system instituted during the Yuan dynasty, increasing centralization, and Han migration into Yunnan.
This is a timeline of the Qing dynasty (1636–1912).
This bibliography covers the English language scholarship of major studies in Chinese history.
The Jurchen unification were a series of events in the late 16th and early 17th centuries that led to the unification of the Jurchen tribes under Nurhaci, a Jianzhou Jurchen leader who had an antagonistic relationship with the Ming dynasty due to their involvement in events early on in his life that led to the death of his father and grandfather. From 1583 to the early 1600s, Nurhaci led a series of military and influence campaigns that led to the unification of the majority of the Jurchen tribes. In 1616, Nurhaci established the Later Jin dynasty and ruled as its founding khan.
