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I have always been fascinated reading about the Tang dynasty in books about imperial China. They were renowned for their poets and are often considered to be the height of Chinese Imperial culture. However it's been almost impossible to find a single book about the dynasty in a historical context. So after almost two years of searching I was very excited to come across, China's Golden Age: Everyday life in the Tang dynasty by Charles Benn. I love social history and was so excited to finally find a book dedicated solely to the Tang that I bought it immediately and started reading it on my trip.
The book is divided into several sections, history, society, cities and urban life, house and garden, clothes and hygiene, food and feasts, leisure and entertainment, travel and transportation, crime and punishment, sickness and health, life cycle and death and the afterlife. The chapters seem to vary in quality. The author makes no use of footnotes, which can be highly frustrating, and tends to mix in fictional stories, anecdotal tales, and actual history with equal measure, and no reliable method of distinguishing between the two. Sometimes the only way to tell when a story is a myth is the casual mention of a ghost. While this seems acceptable in the chapter on death and the afterlife, it seemed a little odd in the one on house and garden. In later chapters he sometimes acknowledges that the reference is from a myth or legend, but these are far in the majority and seem to make the work lack reliability.
I did enjoy the chapter on life in the city, it was easy to picture the layout of the city and life of the residents there. It created a full picture of the markets, the wards and the streets. Though little was said about class differences. The chapter of food was one of the poorer chapters, instead of talking of the main staples of people's diet, the author seemed to take strong delight in pointing out the most extreme varieties of people's diets in different regions, including cannibalism. The last four chapters of the book were more interesting, however in the life cycle chapter he paid very little attention to women's life, but was still interesting. The chapter on death seemed the best. Here it seemed acceptable that so many of his references were anecdotal and contained elements of the supernatural as this was the correct setting for discussing people's beliefs and their descriptions. However it seemed a little short. Particularly discussing the different religions popular during the song.
Most of the authors examples came from either empress Wu's reign or the reign of Illustrious August, (Tang ming huang) with references to "this changed after the rebellion of An Lushan". Very few people were ever mentioned by name, which made it feel more like reading a book of folk tales rather than a historical work that was supposed to give a glimpse into the life of every day people in the time period. It also focused almost exclusively on the elite class who represented only a tiny portion of the Chinese at this time.
I think part of the reason I was disappointed in this book was that I was so excited and had such high hopes for it. I've gotten accustomed to reading more scholarly works about China, and I had loved the book I read before it so much. Still it was entertaining enough to read on vacation, and I think I probably did gain a clearer picture of life, though it's hard to say, mostly I was just reminded of the really great tv serial about the Tang dynasty I used to watch on the international channel.
The book is divided into several sections, history, society, cities and urban life, house and garden, clothes and hygiene, food and feasts, leisure and entertainment, travel and transportation, crime and punishment, sickness and health, life cycle and death and the afterlife. The chapters seem to vary in quality. The author makes no use of footnotes, which can be highly frustrating, and tends to mix in fictional stories, anecdotal tales, and actual history with equal measure, and no reliable method of distinguishing between the two. Sometimes the only way to tell when a story is a myth is the casual mention of a ghost. While this seems acceptable in the chapter on death and the afterlife, it seemed a little odd in the one on house and garden. In later chapters he sometimes acknowledges that the reference is from a myth or legend, but these are far in the majority and seem to make the work lack reliability.
I did enjoy the chapter on life in the city, it was easy to picture the layout of the city and life of the residents there. It created a full picture of the markets, the wards and the streets. Though little was said about class differences. The chapter of food was one of the poorer chapters, instead of talking of the main staples of people's diet, the author seemed to take strong delight in pointing out the most extreme varieties of people's diets in different regions, including cannibalism. The last four chapters of the book were more interesting, however in the life cycle chapter he paid very little attention to women's life, but was still interesting. The chapter on death seemed the best. Here it seemed acceptable that so many of his references were anecdotal and contained elements of the supernatural as this was the correct setting for discussing people's beliefs and their descriptions. However it seemed a little short. Particularly discussing the different religions popular during the song.
Most of the authors examples came from either empress Wu's reign or the reign of Illustrious August, (Tang ming huang) with references to "this changed after the rebellion of An Lushan". Very few people were ever mentioned by name, which made it feel more like reading a book of folk tales rather than a historical work that was supposed to give a glimpse into the life of every day people in the time period. It also focused almost exclusively on the elite class who represented only a tiny portion of the Chinese at this time.
I think part of the reason I was disappointed in this book was that I was so excited and had such high hopes for it. I've gotten accustomed to reading more scholarly works about China, and I had loved the book I read before it so much. Still it was entertaining enough to read on vacation, and I think I probably did gain a clearer picture of life, though it's hard to say, mostly I was just reminded of the really great tv serial about the Tang dynasty I used to watch on the international channel.