The Troubled Empire

The Mongol takeover in the 1270s changed the course of Chinese history. The Confucian empire - a millennium and a half in the making - was suddenly thrust under foreign occupation. What China had been before its reunification as the Yuan dynasty in 1279 was no longer what it would be in the future. Four centuries later, another wave of steppe invaders would replace the Ming dynasty with yet another foreign occupation. "The Troubled Empire" explores what happened to China between these two dramatic invasions. If anything defined the complex dynamics of this period, it was changes in the weather. Asia, like Europe, experienced a Little Ice Age, and as temperatures fell in the thirteenth century, Kublai Khan moved south into China. His Yuan dynasty collapsed in less than a century, but Mongol values lived on in Ming institutions. A second blast of cold in the 1630s, combined with drought, was more than the dynasty could stand, and the Ming fell to Manchu invaders. Against this background - the first coherent ecological history of China in this period - Brook explores the growth of autocracy, social complexity, and commercialization, paying special attention to China's incorporation into the larger South China Sea economy. These changes not only shaped what China would become but contributed to the formation of the early modern world.

ISBN	0674046021	Pages	336
ISBN13	9780674046023 (What's this?)	Weight (grammes)	658
Publisher	Harvard University Press	Published in	Cambridge, Mass.
Imprint	The Belknap Press	Series title	History of Imperial China
Format	Hardback	Height (mm)	235
Publication date	08 Jun 2010	Width (mm)	155
DEWEY	951.02	Spine width (mm)	26
DEWEY edition	DC22	Academic level	General

	Introduction	1
1	Dragon Spotting	6
2	Scale	24
3	The Nine Sloughs	50
4	Khan and Emperor	79
5	Economy and Ecology	106
6	Families	134
7	Beliefs	161
8	The Business of Things	186
9	The South China Sea	213
10	Collapse	238
	Conclusion	260
	Temperature and Precipitation Extremes	269
	The Nine Sloughs	270
	Succession of Emperors	271
	Pronunciation Guide	273
	Notes	274
	Bibliography	297
	Acknowledgments	317
	Index	318

Brook has given a readers a fast-paced, intriguing account of the Yuan and Ming dynasties that will be read and enjoyed for many years to come. -- David D. Buck Canadian Journal of History 20110801 Brook's ecological approach to China is both original and timely: for also China's rulers of today are faced with widespread social tension deriving from environmental calamity and natural catastrophe. -- Tjalling Halbertsma Journal of Asian History 20110601

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China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties

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