myArmoury.com - Looking for References on China, 14th-16th century

Posts: 59

Sun 18 Dec, 2005 7:11 am

Looking for References on China, 14th-16th century

Despite my long interest in medieval Europe, I recently discovered that I know next to nothing about my own military heritage. I'd like to do some reading up on China over Christmas break and I'm looking for good starting references. I'm looking for books on weapons, armor and military organization. Reliable general history books are good too.

Thanks!
Jeff Hsieh

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Hisham Gaballa

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Posts: 508

Sun 18 Dec, 2005 3:15 pm

Re: Looking for References on China, 14th-16th century

Jeff Hsieh wrote:

Despite my long interest in medieval Europe, I recently discovered that I know next to nothing about my own military heritage. I'd like to do some reading up on China over Christmas break and I'm looking for good starting references. I'm looking for books on weapons, armor and military organization. Reliable general history books are good too.

Thanks!
Jeff Hsieh

I must confess I know hardly anything about China in this period. However a good starting point is Osprey books. They may not be particularly accurate, and the artists have a terrible habit of taking liberties in their "reconstructions", but they give a good general idea, are relatively cheap and accessible,and usually have fairly comprehensive bibliographies.

Try these:
http://www.myArmoury.com/books/item.php?ASIN=1855322544
http://www.myArmoury.com/books/item.php?ASIN=1855326558

You can probably get them from Amazon.

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Chris Lampe

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Posts: 211 Location: United States

Sun 18 Dec, 2005 3:37 pm

Hisham,

Scott Rodell (author of "Chinese Swordsmanship" and owner of Seven Stars Trading) has provided a good bibilography on Chinese history that you might want to look at. I expect some of these will be difficult to find but some are widely available.

http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s...bliography

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Felix Wang

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Posts: 394 Location: Fresno, CA

Sun 18 Dec, 2005 6:02 pm

Re: Looking for References on China, 14th-16th century

Jeff Hsieh wrote:

Despite my long interest in medieval Europe, I recently discovered that I know next to nothing about my own military heritage. I'd like to do some reading up on China over Christmas break and I'm looking for good starting references. I'm looking for books on weapons, armor and military organization. Reliable general history books are good too.

Thanks!
Jeff Hsieh

1587, a year of no significance was written by Ray Huang. It is not a general history, but a slice of life in the declining Ming Empire - how a government can fossilize and ruin itself because of internal politics. One-third of the book is devoted to Ch'i Chi-Kuang, and shows how a clever general was able to defeat Japanese (and others) pirate threat in a series of land battles. He did it with an army of peasants, carefully trained.

General history on China is difficult, since it is such a massive subject. You might find Cultural Atlas of China to be useful. It is profusely illustrated and breaks the mass of material into digestible chunks. Ebrey's Cambridge Illustrated History - China is a more conventional overview, but still manageable.

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Felix Wang

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Posts: 394 Location: Fresno, CA

Sun 18 Dec, 2005 6:05 pm

The atlas was written by Blunden and Elvin, by the way. Neither book is really recent, but for most of Chinese history that is not a problem; it would be if you were concentrated on the 20th century.

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Jeff Hsieh

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Posts: 59

Wed 21 Dec, 2005 7:59 am

Thanks for the replies, they were very helpful. It's library time.

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