China

Sui and Tang periods

The best general history of these dynasties is in vol. 3 of The Cambridge History of China (1979). The most important work on the Sui period is Arthur F. Wright, The Sui Dynasty (1978). His two studies “The Formation of Sui Ideology 581–604,” in John K. Fairbank (ed.), Chinese Thought and Institutions (1957, reissued 1973), and “Sui Yang-ti: Personality and Stereotype,” in Arthur F. Wright (ed.), The Confucian Persuasion (1960, reissued 1983) are also useful. Woodbridge Bingham, The Founding of the T’ang Dynasty: The Fall of Sui and Rise of T’ang (1941, reprinted 1970), gives a clear account of the period from 607 to 624.

Analyses of the early Tang are presented in Howard J. Wechsler, Mirror to the Son of Heaven: Wei Cheng at the Court of T’ang T’ai-tsung (1974), and Offerings of Jade and Silk: Ritual and Symbol in the Legitimation of the T’ang Dynasty (1985). R.W.L. Guisso, Wu Tse-t’ien and the Politics of Legitimation in T’ang China (1978), is a comprehensive study of the Empress Wu’s reign.

Edwin G. Pulleyblank, The Background to the Rebellion of An Lu-shan (1955, reprinted 1982), gives a full account of every aspect of the reign of Xuanzong. Also interesting on the politics of the same period is P.A. Herbert, Under the Brilliant Emperor: Imperial Authority in T’ang China as Seen in the Writings of Chang Chiu-ling (1978). The An Lushan rebellion is described in Howard S. Levy (ed. and trans.), Biography of An Lu-shan (1960), a well-annotated translation.

There is no satisfactory book-length account of the following period. The rebellions of the 780s are described briefly in Denis Twitchett, “Lu Chih (754–805),” in Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett (eds.), Confucian Personalities (1962, reissued 1980). The mysterious reign of Shunzong has not been subjected to a modern analytic study, but the principal source is translated in Bernard S. Solomon (ed. and trans.), The Veritable Record of the T’ang Emperor Shun-tsung (1955). There is some account of the subsequent reigns in Arthur Waley, The Life and Times of Po Chü-i, 772–846 A.D. (1949, reissued 2005), but the historical analysis is somewhat outdated.

For the period after 847 even the Chinese primary documentation becomes thin. The only events that have attracted attention of Western scholars are the rebellions, as in Howard S. Levy (ed. and trans.), Biography of Huang Ch’ao, 2nd rev. ed. (1961); and Gungwu Wang, Divided China: Preparing for Reunification, 883–947, 2nd ed. (2007).

A number of important studies on Tang political history, taking account of modern Japanese and Chinese scholarship, are included in Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett (eds.), Perspectives on the T’ang (1973). John Curtis Perry and Bardwell L. Smith (eds.), Essays on T’ang Society: The Interplay of Social, Political, and Economic Forces (1976), is also a significant collection.

Tang finances and economic problems are examined in Denis Twitchett, Financial Administration Under the T’ang Dynasty, 2nd ed. (1970); and Wallace Johnson (trans.), The T’ang Code, vol. 1 (1979), is a translation of the main documents on Tang law. Surveys of social history include Denis Twitchett, Land Tenure and the Social Order in T’ang and Sung China (1962), and Birth of the Chinese Meritocracy: Bureaucrats and Examinations in T’ang China (1976); as well as the relevant sections of Étienne Balazs, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy, trans. from the French (1964, reprinted 1972). Important evidence from Dunhuang is detailed in Lionel Giles, Six Centuries of Tunhuang (1944). More information is in the eyewitness account by a contemporary Japanese monk in Edwin O. Reischauer (trans.), Ennin’s Diary (1955), with a companion volume, Ennin’s Travels in T’ang China (1955, reprinted 1990).

Three works by Edward H. Schafer are extremely important for the light they throw on the cosmopolitan nature of Tang society: The Vermilion Bird: T’ang Images of the South (1967), The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T’ang Exotics (1963, reprinted 1985), and Shore of Pearls (1970), dealing with the early history of Hainan Island. Gungwu Wang, The Nanhai Trade (1958, reissued 2003), surveys Chinese overseas trade and relations with Southeast Asia. Denis C. Twitchett Benjamin Elman