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Dieter Kuhn, The Age ofConfucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Pp. 356. $35.00.
Age ofConfucian Rule is an excellent new volume in the "History of Imperial China" series edited by Timothy Brook. When completed (two other volumes on the Tang and the Northern and Southern Dynasties periods have already appeared), this series will supply something like the Cambridge History of China, but at a much more readable, attractively presented, and classroom-friendly level. Rather than being just reference books these books are actually meant to be read.
Dieter Kuhn's volume covers Chinese history from around A.D. 880 to 1279. Chair of Chinese Studies at the University of Würzburg, he has written extensively on tombs and material culture of this period. Not surprisingly, his presentation of Chinese daily life, material culture, scientific discoveries and concepts, urban planning, and monetary systems are all superb, expertly providing an up-to-date picture of what we know, informed by both archeology and the textual and artistic records.
The book begins with a political history. In "A Time of Turmoil," Kühn covers the fall of the Tang dynasty from 880 on, the chaotic period of the Five Dynasties, and the rise of the non-ethnic Chinese dynasties of the Kitan Liao in the northeast and the Tangut Xia in the northwest. The next two chapters cover the founding of the Song empire in North China in 960, its political principles and the enduring...