[PDF] In The Forbidden City eBook

Author : Chiu Kwong-chiu
Publisher : China Institute in America
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 23,38 MB
Release : 2014-10-14
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9780989377607

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"Readers become tourists as each page turn provides views into labyrinthine courtyards and palaces once reserved for imperial China's emperors (…) An impressive introduction to the Forbidden City." — Kirkus Serving as the seat of imperial power for six centuries, the Forbidden City is one of China's most famous and enigmatic landmarks. Accompanied by a mischievous cat, readers will tour this colossal architectural structure, discovering the secrets hidden inside the palace walls. They will encounter the people who have walked through its halls and gardens, including emperors, empresses, and rebel leaders, and hear exciting tales about the power struggles and intrigues of everyday life. This large format book conveys the grandeur of the Forbidden City through highly detailed line drawings of its buildings, gardens, and courtyards with numerous fold-out spreads. Each page is populated by a large variety of characters and peppered with entertaining anecdotes. Every book includes a plastic magnifying glass for looking at the drawings more closely. "Readers receive a lavish tour of the Forbidden City, once home to Chinese emperors and now a museum, courtesy of Chiu and the Design and Cultural Studies Workshop, which he founded. Delicate line drawings highlight the architectural intricacies of the nearly 178-acre complex (several foldout spreads emphasize its size) while Chiu examines the Ming and Qing dynasties in thorough detail, along with major events in the palace's history. (In one foldout scene, 24 emperors offer pithy, even brusque notes on their reigns — "I was entirely unaccomplished," says Emperor Longqing.) A magnifying glass is wisely included to help readers appreciate the wealth of visual detail." — Publishers Weekly

Author : Vanessa Hua
Publisher : Ballantine Books
Page : 385 pages
File Size : 15,90 MB
Release : 2023-04-18
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0399178821

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A teenage girl living in 1960s China becomes Mao Zedong’s protégée and lover—and a heroine of the Cultural Revolution—in this “masterful” (The Washington Post) novel. “A new classic about China’s Cultural Revolution . . . Think Succession, but add death and mayhem to the palace intrigue. . . . Ambitious and impressive.”—San Francisco Chronicle ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, PopSugar • Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize On the eve of China’s Cultural Revolution and her sixteenth birthday, Mei dreams of becoming a model revolutionary. When the Communist Party recruits girls for a mysterious duty in the capital, she seizes the opportunity to escape her impoverished village. It is only when Mei arrives at the Chairman’s opulent residence—a forbidden city unto itself—that she learns that the girls’ job is to dance with the Party elites. Ambitious and whip-smart, Mei beelines toward the Chairman. Mei gradually separates herself from the other recruits to become the Chairman’s confidante—and paramour. While he fends off political rivals, Mei faces down schemers from the dance troupe who will stop at nothing to take her place and the Chairman’s imperious wife, who has secret plans of her own. When the Chairman finally gives Mei a political mission, she seizes it with fervor, but the brutality of this latest stage of the revolution makes her begin to doubt all the certainties she has held so dear. Forbidden City is an epic yet intimate portrayal of one of the world’s most powerful and least understood leaders during this extraordinarily turbulent period in modern Chinese history. Mei’s harrowing journey toward truth and disillusionment raises questions about power, manipulation, and belief, as seen through the eyes of a passionate teenage girl.

Author : Geremie R. Barmé
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 27,9 MB
Release : 2011-06-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0674069099

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The Forbidden City (Zijin Cheng) lying at the heart of Beijing formed the hub of the Celestial Empire for five centuries. Over the past century it has led a reduced life as the refuge for a deposed emperor, as well as a heritage museum for monarchist, republican, and socialist citizens, and it has been celebrated and excoriated as a symbol of all that was magnificent and terrible in dynastic China’s legacy.

Author : Daisy Yiyou Wang
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 45,20 MB
Release : 2018
Category : ART
ISBN : 9780300237085

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"Empresses of China's Forbidden City: 1644-1912 accompanies the exhibition of the same title organized by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, the Freer]Sackler, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC, and the Palace Museum, Beijing, China."

Author : William Bell
Publisher : Seal Books
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 41,60 MB
Release : 2010-10-15
Category : Young Adult Fiction
ISBN : 0385674120

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Seventeen-year-old Alex Jackson comes home from school to find that his father, a CBC news cameraman, wants to take him to China's capital, Beijing. Once there, Alex finds himself on his own in Tian An Men Square as desperate students fight the Chinese army for their freedom. Separated from his father and carrying illegal videotapes, Alex must trust the students to help him escape. Closely based on eyewitness accounts of the massacre in Beijing, Forbidden City is a powerful and frightening story.

Author : Reginald F. Johnston
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 573 pages
File Size : 26,19 MB
Release : 2011-06-30
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1108029655

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Johnson's account of the last years of the Chinese Qing dynasty provides a unique Western perspective on this historic period.

Author : Yi Wan
Publisher : Viking Adult
Page : 327 pages
File Size : 33,59 MB
Release : 1988
Category : History
ISBN : 9780670811649

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Third in the series of books displaying China's most glittering historic treasures, this magnificent work unveils the artifacts of the splendid dynastic life mysteriously led behind the walls of the Forbidden City. Full-color illustrations.

Author : R. Po-chia Hsia
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 43,24 MB
Release : 2010-10-28
Category : History
ISBN : 0191625116

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A 16th century Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci was the founder of the Catholic Mission in China and one of the most famous missionaries of all time. A pioneer in bringing Christianity to China, Ricci spent twenty eight years in the country, in which time he crossed the cultural divides between China and the West by immersing himself in the language and culture of his hosts. Even 400 years later, he is still one of the best known westerners in China, celebrated for introducing western scientific and religious ideas to China and for explaining Chinese culture to Europe. The first critical biography of Ricci to use all relevant sources, both Chinese and Western, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City tells the story of a remarkable life that bridged Counter-Reformation Catholic Europe and China under the Ming dynasty. Hsia follows the life of Ricci from his childhood in Macerata, through his education in Rome, to his sojourn in Portuguese India, before the start of his long journey of self-discovery and cultural encounter in the Ming realm. Along the way, we glimpse the workings of the Portuguese maritime empire in Asia, the mission of the Society of Jesus, and life in the European enclave of Macau on the Chinese coast, as well as invaluable sketches of Ricci's fellow Jesuits and portraits of the Chinese mandarins who formed networks indispensible for Ricci's success. Examining a range of new sources, Hsia offers important new insights into Ricci's long period of trial and frustration in Guangdong province, where he first appeared in the persona of a foreign Buddhist monk, before the crucial move to Nanchang in 1595 that led to his sustained intellectual conversation with a leading Confucian scholar and subsequent synthesis of Christianity and Confucianism in propagating the Gospels in China. With his expertise in cartography, mathematics, and astronomy, Ricci quickly won recognition, especially after he had settled in Nanjing in 1598, the southern capital of the Ming dynasty. As his reputation and friendships grew, Ricci launched into a sharp polemic against Buddhism, while his career found its crowning achievement in the imperial capital of Beijing, leaving behind a life, work, and legacy that is still very much alive today.

Author : Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Page : 72 pages
File Size : 39,30 MB
Release : 2018-02-12
Category :
ISBN : 9781985352643

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*Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Located in the center of Beijing, the Forbidden City served as the palace for the emperor of China from 1420 to 1912 CE, a period encompassing the Ming and Qing dynasties. It was home to the celestial leaders of China, men that possessed the Mandate of Heaven. A total of 24 emperors lived and ruled from the vast and magnificent complex for almost 500 years, until the last Chinese dynasty was overthrown in 1912 with the abdication of Emperor Xuantong, more commonly known as Puyi. Known also as the Forbidden Palace, or amongst contemporary Chinese as the "Former Palace," the complex was first given its name in 1576. The Forbidden City was the home of many thousands of governmental staff, female servants and concubines, eunuchs, soldiers, and kitchen staff, and where their entire lives were built. Nonetheless, entrance to it from the outside was forbidden to all but the emperor, his court, and his relations. Without the permission of the emperor, access to or from the heart of the empire was impossible, but what was once inaccessible is now one of the most visited institutions in the world. Today, the Forbidden City is a UNESCO World Heritage site, operated as the largest museum in the world and located in the heart of the capital of the world's most populous country. The Forbidden City: The History of the Chinese Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing examines the history of the palace. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Forbidden City like never before.

Author : Gilles Béguin
Publisher :
Page : 143 pages
File Size : 25,19 MB
Release : 1997
Category : China
ISBN : 9780500300787

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The Forbidden City in Beijing is one of the greatest royal palaces in the world: and was the sacred centre of the Chinese empire. Despite political upheaval and social change in the rest of China, the life of rigid protocol and ritual in the Forbidden City remained unaltered, frozen in time, until the day when the modern world entered its long-closed gates and changed it for ever. This account is an insight into five centuries of Chinese history, from the beginnings of the palace in 1405 to its modern function as a museum.