Thursday, December 29, 2016

則天武后

Author:
氣賀澤保規 (Kegasawa, Yasunori)

Publisher:
講談社

Publication Date:
2016. 11.10

Abstract:
秦の始皇帝に始まる二千年余にわたる中華帝国の歴史にその名を刻む唯一の女帝・則天武后(武則天)。男性中心秩序の古代社会に己の才覚と知力で挑み、至尊の座にまで登りつめた女性は、何を目指し、また何が彼女を生み出したのか--。大唐帝国繁栄の礎を築いた冷徹にして情熱的な生涯とその時代を、学術的知見に基づいて鮮やかに描き出す。




Table of Contents:

はじめに
第一章 則天武后の生卒年
第二章 隋末の動乱と唐の決起
第三章 玄武門の変
第四章 唐太宗と貞観の治
第五章 太宗の後継問題
第六章 武照の出生と武士かく
第七章 武照、太宗の後宮へ
第八章 高宗朝の女の争い
第九章 武昭儀、皇后の座に
第十章 二聖と垂簾の政
第十一章 武后政治の新展開
第十二章 武后とその一族
第十三章 高宗の崩御
第十四章 李敬業の反乱
第十五章 酷吏と告密の恐怖政治
第十六章 怪僧薛懐義
第十七章 武周政権への最終コーナー
第十八章 武周革命
第十九章 武周朝の朝士──狄仁傑
第二十章 武周朝の終焉
第二十一章 武后残影
おわりに
則天武后関係年表
則天武后評伝・文学書一覧
講談社学術文庫によせて

解 説  上野 誠


Monday, December 26, 2016

A Source Book of Ancient Chinese Bronze Inscriptions

Editors:
Constance A. Cook; Paul R. Goldin

Publisher:
Society for the Study of Early China 

Publication Date:
November 10, 2016




Abstract:

Bronze inscriptions are not only the most important category of historical sources for the Chinese Bronze Age, but also records of crucial rituals in ancient Chinese religious life. Addressed both to unborn descendants and to the spirits of deceased ancestors, bronze inscriptions, and the ceremonies they memorialized, connected the human world to the spirit world, and linked the generations of a lineage for all time.

This source book is a collaborative effort involving ten scholars, including Constance A. Cook, Wolfgang Behr, Robert Eno, Paul R. Goldin, Martin Kern, Maria Khayutina, David W. Pankenier, David Sena, Laura Skosey, Yan Sun. It begins with a general editorial introduction outlining the significance of bronze inscriptions, followed by more focused discussions of subjects such as the implied ceremonies of bronze inscriptions, typological trends, and modern interpretive methods. The body of the book consists of eighty-two illustrative inscriptions, each with a brief contributor's introduction detailing the historical value and distinctive features of the text, as well as a list of further readings. The book concludes with a glossary of technical terms, a comprehensive bibliography, and an index.

Table of Contents:





Friday, December 23, 2016

The Silk Roads of the Northern Tibetan Plateau during the Early Middle Ages (from the Han to Tang Dynasty) : As Reconstructed from Archaeological and Written Sources

Author:
Tong Tao 仝濤

Publisher:
Archaeopress

Publication Year:
2013




Abstract:

The excavation of Tuyuhun-Tubo (Tibetan) elite graves at Dulan 都蘭 and Delingha 德令哈 in the modern province of Qinghai has necessitated a rewriting of the history of the Silk Road of the north-western China, especially during the 5th-8th centuries AD. This work analyses the history and archaeological evidence reflecting the Han Chinese, Tuyuhun and Tibetan domination of the northern Tibetan Plateau, on which the Qinghai Silk Road features. The study focuses on the Tuyuhun-Tubo cemeteries and artefacts, including silks, gold and silver objects, coffin paintings and other significant findings made during the past decades. The result gives fresh insights into the complicated cultural dimensions and interactions along the Silk Road, which contributed greatly to the shaping of the Tibetan culture.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction

2. The natural environment of the northern Tibetan plateau

3. Transport routes on the northern Tibetan plateau as mentioned in Chinese sources

4. Archaeological materials of the Han and Jin periods (3rd century BC-3rd century AD)

5. Archaeological study of sites on the northern Tibetan plateau along the silk road during the early Tuyuhun period (4th-mid 7th century AD)

6. Archaeological study of sites on the northern Tibetan plateau along the silk road during the Tubo period (the later Tuyuhun period, mid 7th-8th century AD) 

7. Conclusions

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

The Rhetoric of Hiddenness in Traditional Chinese Culture

Editor:
Paula Varsano

Publisher:
SUNY

Publication Date:
December 30, 2016




Abstract:


This volume brings together fourteen essays that explore the role of hiddenness as both an object and a mode of representation in the history of cultural production in China from the Warring States Period (403 221 BCE) to the end of the Qing Dynasty (1911) and beyond. The rhetorical use of various forms of hiddenness makes its appearance in literary, political, philosophical, and religious writings, as well as in the visual arts. Working in fields as disparate as traditional Chinese literature, religion, philosophy, history, medicine, and art, the contributors attempt to characterize one of the fundamental signifying practices in traditional Chinese cultural production. In the process, they not only reveal otherwise obscure patterns connecting longstanding social, political, aesthetic, and epistemological practices, but also contribute to ongoing discussions well beyond the field of China studies regarding the representation and communicability of knowledge, as well as the practices controlling its dissemination."

Table of Contents:

1. Lowered Curtains in the Half-Light: An Introduction
Paula M. Varsano

I. The Art of Withholding

2. The Ruling Mind: Persuasion and the Origins of Chinese Psychology
David Schaberg

3. Beliefs about Social Seeing: Hiddenness (wei 微) and Visibility in Classical-Era China
Michael Nylan

4. Woman in the Tower:“Nineteen Old Poems”and the Poetics of Un/concealment
Xiaofei Tian

5. Hiding Behind a Woman: Contexts and Meanings in Early Qing Poetry
Wai-yee Li

II. The Lessons of Distraction

6. Hiddenness of the Body and the Metaphysics of Sight
Shigehisa Kuriyama

7. Worlds of Meaning and the Meaning of Worlds in Sikong Tu’s Twenty-Four Modes of Poetry 
Paula M. Varsano

III. On Blind Spots

8. Hidden in Plain View: Concealed Contents, Secluded Statues, and Revealed Religion
James Robson

9. The Vernacular Story and the Hiddenness of Value
Sophie Volpp

10. Absence and Presence: The Great Wall in Chinese Art
Lillian Lan-ying Tseng

IV. The Languages of Synecdoche

11. Synecdoche of the Imaginary
Stephen Owen

12.“The Disarrayed Hills Conceal an Old Monastery”: The Dynamics of Poetry and Painting in the Northern Song
Eugene Wang

V. Just Words

13. Manifesting Sagely Knowledge: Commentarial Strategies in Chinese Late Antiquity
Michael Puett

14. The Yi-Xiang-Yan Paradigm and Early Chinese Theories of Literary Creation
Zong-qi Cai

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Chariots in Early China : Origins, Cultural Interaction, and Identity

Author:
Xiaoyun Wu

Publisher:
Archaeopress

Publication Year:
2013




Abstract:

This book concerns the ways in which the adaption of a steppe innovation, the horse-drawn chariot, in Chinese society during the 12th - 3rd century BCE contributed profoundly to the development of Chinese political and social value. The importance of the steppe driving skill in warfare, and political and ritual ceremonies in Chinese society not only brought a number of steppe people to serve in Chinese states, but also largely transformed Chinese social, political, and burial practices, and value systems. These early uses were reinterpreted in later periods and still have their influence today

Table of Contents:

Introduction. 
Historical background ; Literature Review ; Research Approaches ; Organization of the book

The Origins: the Shang Chariot and Their Steppe Associations. 
Introduction ; Components of the Shang chariot set ; The origins of the Shang chariot set ; The adaption of steppe chariots in the late Shang society

The Golden Chariot of the Zhou. 
Background ; Associations between the Zhou chariot and the Steppe culture ; The development of social roles of chariots in the Western Zhou period ; Chariots in the Eastern Zhou period ; The adoption of Zhou fittings by northern steppe groups

Chariots, Steppe Elements, and the Zhou Elite's Local Networks. 
Introduction ; Negotiation with steppe groups: cases from the Yan state and its periphery ; Gender and ethnic expressions of chariot burials in a local context: cases from the cemetery of the Jin ruling family ; Adopting chariots in the south in the middle Yangtze River valley ; Later developments

The Chariot of Early China: a Cultural Symbol

Saturday, December 17, 2016

The Commentarial Transformation of the Spring and Autumn

Author:
Newell Ann Van Auken

Publication Date:
December 2016

Publisher:
SUNY Press




Abstract:

The Spring and Autumn is among the earliest surviving Chinese historical records, covering the period 722–479 BCE. It is a curious text: the canonical interpretation claims that it was composed by Confucius and embodies his moral judgments, but this view appears to be contradicted by the brief and dispassionate records themselves. Newell Ann Van Auken addresses this puzzling discrepancy through an examination of early interpretations of the Spring and Autumn, and uncovers a crucial missing link in two sets of commentarial remarks embedded in the Zuoû Tradition. These embedded commentaries do not seek moral judgments in the Spring and Autumn, but instead interpret its records as produced by a historiographical tradition that was governed by rules related to hierarchy and ritual practice. Van Auken’s exploration of the Zuo Tradition and other early commentaries sheds light on the transformation of the Spring and Autumn from a simple, non-narrative historical record into a Confucian classic.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments
Scholarly Conventions

Introduction
 Text, Commentary, and Authority
 The Spring and Autumn: An Overview and Brief Reception History
 The Zuô Tradition and Spring and Autumn Commentary
 Overview of the Book

1. Orthodoxy and Transformation: Two Categories of Commentary

2. The Ritual Filter and the Centrality of Lǔ

3. Hierarchy, Criticism, and Commendation: Recognizing Merit and Assigning Fault

4. Two Ways of Teaching the Spring and Autumn: The Sources of the Direct Commentaries

5. Other Approaches to Commentary in the Zuô Tradition: The Gentleman and Confucius

6. Incomplete Correspondences and the Likelihood of Mediated Contact: The Relation of the Direct Commentaries to Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng

7. From Recording Rules to Written Text: Conceptual Antecedents to Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng in the Direct Commentaries

Epilogue

Appendix
Summaries and Topical Lists of the Direct Commentary Passages
Summaries: Specific Remarks
Summaries: General Remarks
Topical Lists of Direct Commentary Passages

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Friday, December 16, 2016

Les fleurs du royaume : savoirs lettrés et pouvoir impérial en Chine, Ve-VIe siècles (The Flowers of the Kingdom: Literary Knowledge and Imperial Power in China, 5th-6th Century)

Author:
Pablo Blitstein

Publisher: 
Les Belles lettres

Publication Year:
2015



Abstract:

Les trajectoires de la modernité nous ont amené à voir dans la littérature et la politique deux sphères autonomes et irréductibles l'une à l’autre. C’est là une conception récente dont l’historien doit se déprendre s’il veut rendre compte de ce qui faisait sens dans d’autres lieux et d’autres temps. À Jiankang, dans la Chine du Sud des Ve et VIe siècles, rien n’aurait pu autoriser un divorce entre le littéraire et le politique : les savoirs de la lecture et de l’écriture — le wen — étaient façonnés par les institutions de la cour et de l’administration. Les ministres étaient les « écrivains » ; les rites, leur « esthétique » ; l’empereur, les princes et les autres ministres, leurs « critiques littéraires ». Ornements du pouvoir impérial, symboles de la vertu de l’empereur, des princes et des ministres, les savoirs lettrés étaient régis par un ensemble de codes curiaux et administratifs qui en définissaient l’usage et la transmission, à tel point que pouvoir lettré et pouvoir impérial constituaient une unité inextricable. Dans ce cadre, les disputes littéraires devenaient inévitablement des conflits politiques : elles opposaient des vues différentes sur la forme rituellement « correcte » de symboliser le pouvoir. C’est donc au prisme de ses rivalités et de ses dépendances, de ses intrigues et de ses codes, que l’on fera incursion dans ce monde lettré à la fois proche et éloigné du nôtre.

Table of Contents:

Mondes lettrés, préface par Christian Jacob

Remerciements

Liste des abréviations

Introduction

Savoirs lettrés et institutions impériales 

I. La cour, l'administration et les savoirs lettrés

I.1. Les savoirs institués

I.1.a. La parole du seigneur et la parole du ministre

I.1.b. Codes, rites et marquage statutaire

I.2. Les « fleurs du royaume » : caractère représentatif du style

I.3. Poésie et prose administrative 

II. Mécanismes de distribution et de hiérarchisation des savoirs lettrés

II.1. Les académies, les familles 

II.2. Recrutement, savoirs lettrés et définition statutaire 

II.3. Stratification des élites de cour et relation avec la famille impériale

III. Les lettres et les armes : violence symbolique et violence physique à Jiankang

III.1. Savoirs lettrés et violence symbolique

a. Mécanismes spécifiques de la violence symbolique à la cour 

b. Les contraintes du dire 

c. Les espaces du dire

III.2. Les savoirs lettrés et la force des armes

Récapitulatif : pour une sortie de l'approche littéraire


La validation des savoirs lettrés : transparence, tradition, magie

I. Transparence et administration

I.1. Règle de transparence et validation des savoirs 

I.2. Ornement et vertu

I.3. Les rites et la transparence

I.3.a. La transparence et l'efficacité des cérémonies

I.3.b. La transparence et l’efficacité des rites d’étiquette 

II. L’invocation de la tradition

II.1. Les livres canoniques comme sources de la tradition

II.2. L’analogie en question : les défis de la distinction entre wen et bi

II.3. Tradition et changement

II.3.a. L’« explicitation » de la tradition comme validation de l’innovation

II.3.b. Le régime du changement 

III. La magie de l’écriture 

III.1. L’expropriation de la parole

III.2. La magie de l’écriture 

Récapitulatif : validation lettrée et éthique du convenable


L’ornement et le convenable

I. Le texte comme signe de l’ethos lettré

I.1. Comparaison et incitation 

I.2. Hyperbole 

I.3. Les erreurs

II. L’éthique de l’ornement

II.1. L’ornement du fonctionnaire

II.2. Ornement et statut

II.3. Ornement et savoirs lettrés

III. « Bureaucratisme » et « aristocratisme »

III.1. Les hommes de porte froide

III.2. Célérité et efficacité

III.3. L’occupation du temps et le bureaucratisme de Pei Ziye

III.4. Le bureaucratisme chez Shen Yue

III.5. « Aristocratisme » : le familial et le personnel 

Récapitulatif : savoir et statut


La rivalité

I. La rivalité et la mise en scène des savoirs 

I.1. Une scène de rivalité

I.2. « Aristocratisme », « bureaucratisme » et la stratégie de l’écart dans les rivalités entre ministres

I.3. Richesses, postes, positions : quelques motifs de rivalité

II. Autorité lettrée et arènes de rivalité

III. La contention des rivalités et les réformes de Xiao Yan 

Récapitulatif : rivalité et autorité lettrée


La bureaucratisation des autorités lettrées à la cour impériale : de Wang Jian à Shen Yue

I. Wang Jian

I.1. Wang Jian et ses savoirs

I.2. Tradition et stratégie chez Wang Jian 

I.3. L’usage des institutions

I.4. Jeux et autorité 

II. Shen Yue

II.1. Le wen chez Shen Yue 

II.2. Savoirs lettrés et trajectoire

II.3. Le chemin vers le sommet

II.4. Xiao Yan et la bureaucratisation des autorités lettrées

III. Quelques réflexions sur d’autres trajectoires lettrées

III.1. Liu Xie et le patronage 

III.2. Pei Ziye et la confrontation

Récapitulatif : les transformations de l’autorité lettrée à la cour impériale


L’autorité lettrée et le discours de légitimation impériale

I. Le « Livre de la piété filiale » et le discours de légitimation

I.1. Le discours du « seigneur » 

I.2. Le « savant » et le « seigneur »

II. Discours de légitimation et représentativité 

II.1. La « Préface », représentante dénotative du pouvoir 

II.2. La « Préface », représentante connotative du pouvoir 

Récapitulatif : légitimation impériale et mobilité du sens


Conclusion

ANNEXES

Chronologie des dynasties entre 206 av. J.-C. et 907 apr. J.-C. 

Chronologie des dynasties du sud et du nord 南北朝 (420-589)

Chronologie des faits pertinents pour cette étude

Les cinq agences principales de l’administration impériale 

Glossaire

Personnages mentionnés dans le corps du texte

Références sur certaines des familles illustres mentionnées dans le corps du texte 

Bibliographie

Jusqu’au XIXe siècle

XXe et XXIe siècles

Traductions mentionnées 

Index des noms de personnes (sélection)

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Transgressive Typologies: Constructions of Gender and Power in Early Tang China

Author:
Rebecca Doran

Publisher:
Harvard University Asia Center

Publication Date:
January 2017





Abstract:

The exceptionally powerful Chinese women leaders of the late seventh and early eighth centuries—including Wu Zhao 武曌, the Taiping 太平 and Anle 安樂 princesses, Empress Wei 韋, and Shangguan Wan’er 上官婉兒—though quite prominent in the Chinese cultural tradition, remain elusive and often misunderstood or essentialized throughout history. Transgressive Typologies utilizes a new, multidisciplinary approach to understand how these figures’ historical identities are constructed in the mainstream secular literary-historical tradition and to analyze the points of view that inform these constructions.

Using close readings and rereadings of primary texts written in medieval China through later imperial times, this study elucidates narrative typologies and motifs associated with these women to explore how their power is rhetorically framed, gendered, and ultimately deemed transgressive. Rebecca Doran offers a new understanding of major female figures of the Tang era within their literary-historical contexts, and delves into critical questions about the relationship between Chinese historiography, reception-history, and the process of image-making and cultural construction.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. Female Rule and Its Representation: Gender, Paradigm, and Historical Narrative

2. (Self)Expression and Gendered Legitimacy: Projection of Identity in Literature of the Late Seventh Century through the Jinglong Era

3. Ritual, Signs, and the Interpretation of Female Power

4. Building Power: Symbolic Architecture, Conspicuous Consumption, and Rule by Women

5. Gender Anarchy and the Rhetorical Overthrow of Female Rule

Conclusion

Saturday, December 10, 2016

[Dissertation] The Core Chapters of the Yi Zhou shu

Author:
Yegor Grebnev

Year:
2016 

School:
University of Oxford

Abstract:


In this thesis, I discuss a group of compositionally related “core” chapters within the Yi Zhou shu 逸周書, a collection of 59 texts from ancient China that has received very limited attention in scholarship. The texts in this collection are difficult to read and interpret because of their poor preservation and the lack of concise commentaries. 

I develop a methodological strategy for the identification of philologically related texts within the collection, which allows me to single out a group of texts related by compositional structures, rhetorical patterns and characteristic formulaic expressions. I call such chapters “kingly consultations”, considering that most of such texts are presented as speeches involving sage rulers of the Western Zhou 西周 (mid. 11th century – 771 BC), in which they share the fundamental wisdoms of kingship. I argue that these texts are remnants of an important ritualised textual practice, which has left traces not only in the Yi Zhou shu, but also in other collections, such as the Liu tao 六韜 (Six Bow Cases), which is commonly classified among “military” texts. 

I reconstruct elements of the socio-political context of the kingly consultations using comparative insight. I examine the numerical lists used for systematisation of knowledge against similar lists in the Pāli canon. I also explain the significance of the expressions that emphasise the secretive transmission of texts against better known esoteric textual communities in China and Japan. Such comparison allows me to preliminarily identify the communities behind the kingly consultations as based on strict knowledge-based hierarchy, but prone to segmentation. Finally, I position the kingly consultations within the broader context of the practice of treasure texts. This practice is an important development in ancient China that led to the emergence of a new type of textual authority by “detaching” earlier epigraphic texts from their precious material carriers and introducing them into novel environment of manuscript culture.

Friday, December 9, 2016

Tense and Aspect in Han Period Chinese : A Linguistic Analysis of the 'Shĭjì'

Author:
Barbara Meisterernst

Publisher:
Berlin ; Boston: De Gruyter Mouton

Publication Date:
December 2014




Abstract:

Many grammatical issues of Archaic and Medieval Chinese still lack a comprehensive analysis. The book provides the first thorough investigation of the syntactic and semantic constraints of the linguistic categories tense and aspect and their relation with the lexical aspect of the verb in Han period Chinese. The author uncovers fascinating details of a language with a highly restricted verbal morphology.

Table of Contents:


1. General introduction

2. The category tense

3. The category aspect

4. Tense and aspect in Chinese

5. The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases

6. The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shiji

Conclusion

Sunday, December 4, 2016

後漢魏晋史論攷: 好並隆司遺稿集

Author:
好並隆司 Yoshinami Takashi

Publisher:
広島:溪水社

Publication Year:
2014




Abstract:

前著『前漢政治史研究』につづく後漢魏晋期の政治史に関する論文と、中国の被差別民や水利史に関する社会史研究を収録。

Table of Contents:

前  文………佐川英治

第一部 後漢・魏晋史研究

 伝国璽再考
 「皇帝と天子」称号の考察
 後漢期、皇帝・皇太后の政治と儒家思想
 皇太后称制の統治機構
 後漢期、皇太后・宦官の支配様式
 曹魏王国の成立
 魏・晋代、司馬・曹両氏の浮華・老荘思想をめぐる政争
 後漢・魏代における天・人思想の展開
 「浮華」論考
 魏朝における曹爽専権の時代

第二部 社会史研究

 楽戸以前
 楽戸をめぐって
 漢籍史料よりみた中国の被差別民
 山西省の碑刻に見える水利祭祀と灌漑

あとがき………好並 晶
事項索引
人名索引

Saturday, December 3, 2016

[Dissertation] Verse and Lore: 'Poems on History' (yongshi shi 詠史詩) from the Selections of Refined Literature (Wen xuan 文選)

Author:
Yue, Zhang

School:
University of Toronto

Year:
2014

Abstract:

This dissertation discusses how cultural memory and nostalgia are demonstrated and negotiated in poems through investigating the section of ―Poems on History in the Selections of Refined Literature (Wen xuan 文選). 

Chapter One lays a solid foundation for further discussion, mainly exploring previous Chinese and English scholarship on poems on history in the early medieval period (220-580) and providing a brief history of this subgenre up to this point. 

Chapter Two examines why the Wen xuan editors chose certain poems in the section of Poems on History through a case study of the reception of Zuo Si‘s poems. The reception and canonization process of his poems serve as a good example to illustrate how the memory of literary past is shaped and mediated by the intellectual and cultural zeitgeist of this period. 

Chapter Three deals with the different approaches by which the poets connect historical lore with poetry, and shows the sophistication of poems on history in Chinese literary tradition. 

The last two chapters discuss two case studies: one is from Zuo Si 左思, an earlier case and the other on Yan Yanzhi 顏延之, a case closer to the Wen xuan editors' time period. Chapter Four explicitly discusses how poets use literature as a way to create a poetic-self as an alternative to images transmitted in standard histories, a represented self under their control through which poets influence their contemporaries and later readers‘ perception and memories about them. A good case study of this process is Zuo Si's ―Poems on History. 

Chapter Five talks about the formation of poets' reputation in history, not based on their political achievements and contributions, but on the highly admirable moral values and ideals expressed in their poetry, which become models for later literati. Yan Yanzhi's ―Poems on the Five Lords‖ is a case study that shows the continuing tradition of character appraisal, dealing with five historical figures who were remembered because of their musical, literary, and spiritual cultivation. Thus poems on history--their composition, their reception, their transmission through anthologies--are shown to have been a vital means of interpreting and evaluating the past, and to have played an important role in shaping Chinese identity and character through literature.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

The Ancient State of Puyŏ in Northeast Asia: Archaeology and Historical Memory

Author:
Mark E. Byington

Publication Date:
October 2016

Publisher:
Harvard University Asia Center





Abstract:

Mark E. Byington explores the formation, history, and legacy of the ancient state of Puyŏ 扶餘, which existed in central Manchuria from the third century BCE until the late fifth century CE. As the earliest archaeologically attested state to arise in northeastern Asia, Puyŏ occupies an important place in the history of that region. Nevertheless, until now its history and culture have been rarely touched upon in scholarly works in any language. The present volume, utilizing recently discovered archaeological materials from Northeast China as well as a wide variety of historical records, explores the social and political processes associated with the formation and development of the Puyŏ state, and discusses how the historical legacy of Puyŏ—its historical memory—contributed to modes of statecraft of later northeast Asian states and provided a basis for a developing historiographical tradition on the Korean peninsula. Byington focuses on two major aspects of state formation: as a social process leading to the formation of a state-level polity called Puyŏ, and as a political process associated with a variety of devices intended to assure the stability and perpetuation of the inegalitarian social structures of several early states in the Korea–Manchuria region.

Table of Contents:

Puyo in studies of early northeast Asia

The archaeology of Puyo : part one: Bronze Age antecedents

The archaeology of Puyo : part two: formation of the Puyo state

History of the Puyo state

Society and territory of the Puyo state

Post-conquest Puyo survivals

Two phases of state formation

Appendix: Puyo in studies of historical geography