Fruit from the Sands: The Silk Road Origins of the Foods We Eat

Author:
Robert N. Spengler III

Publisher:
University of California Press

Publication date:
July 2019

Abstract:
The foods we eat have a deep and often surprising past. From almonds and apples to tea and rice, many foods that we consume today have histories that can be traced out of prehistoric Central Asia along the tracks of the Silk Road to kitchens in Europe, America, China, and elsewhere in East Asia. The exchange of goods, ideas, cultural practices, and genes along these ancient routes extends back five thousand years, and organized trade along the Silk Road dates to at least Han Dynasty China in the second century BC. Balancing a broad array of archaeological, botanical, and historical evidence, Fruit from the Sands presents the fascinating story of the origins and spread of agriculture across Inner Asia and into Europe and East Asia. Through the preserved remains of plants found in archaeological sites, Robert N. Spengler III identifies the regions where our most familiar crops were domesticated and follows their routes as people carried them around the world. With vivid examples, Fruit from the Sands explores how the foods we eat have shaped the course of human history and transformed cuisines all over the globe.

Table of Contents:

A Word on Semantics
A Note on Dates
Map of Central Asia

Part i. How the Silk Road influenced the food you eat

1. Introduction
2. Plants on the Silk Road
3. The Silk and Spice Routes

Part i i. Artifacts of the Silk Road in your kitchen

4. The Millets
5. Rice and Other Ancient Grains
6. Barley
7. The Wheats
8. Legumes
9. Grapes and Apples
10. Other Fruits and Nuts
11. Leafy Vegetables, Roots, and Stems
12. Spices, Oils, and Tea

13. Conclusion

Appendix: European Travelers along the Silk Road

The Politics of the Past in Early China

Author:
Vincent S. Leung

Publication date:
August 2019

Publisher: 
Cambridge University Press

Abstract:
Why did the past matter so greatly in ancient China? How did it matter and to whom? This is an innovative study of how the past was implicated in the long transition of power in early China, as embodied by the decline of the late Bronze Age aristocracy and the rise of empires over the first millenium BCE. Engaging with a wide array of historical materials, including inscriptional records, excavated manuscripts, and transmitted texts, Vincent S. Leung moves beyond the historiographical canon and explores how the past was mobilized as powerful ideological capital in diverse political debate and ethical dialogue. Appeals to the past in early China were more than a matter of cultural attitude, Leung argues, but were rather deliberate ways of articulating political thought and challenging ethical debates during periods of crisis. Significant power lies in the retelling of the past.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. Time out of joint: uses of the past from the Western Zhou to the early warring states

2. A parenthetical past: deep history and anti-history in the late warring states

3. Specter of the past: bureaucratic amnesia under the Rise of the Qin Empire

4. The rehabilitation of antiquity in the early Han Empire

5. Sima Qian's critical past

Epilogue

水経注疏訳注（穀水篇）

Editor:
東洋文庫中国古代地域史研究グループ

Publisher:
東洋文庫

Publication year:
2019
     

Table of Contents:
     
序言
東洋文庫 中国古代地域史研究グループ,窪添 慶文
   
[図版] 穀水(澗河) 流域の『水経注』関連都城・集落遺跡

穀水（澗河）流域の標点移籍と穀水河道の遺構
塩沢 裕仁

漢・魏晋・北魏の洛陽城
窪添 慶文
  
『水経注疏』訳注凡例
      
『水経注疏』巻十六　穀水
       
『水経注疏』巻十六　甘水
        
『水経注疏』巻十六　漆水
        
『水経注疏』巻十六　滻水
     
『水経注疏』巻十六　沮水
   
『水経注疏』巻十六　影印
    
索引
         
公益財団法人東洋文庫所蔵明版水経注三種
會谷 佳光

Link:
https://toyo-bunko.repo.nii.ac.jp/index.php?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_view_main_item_snippet&index_id=1302&pn=1&count=20&order=17&lang=japanese&page_id=25&block_id=47

Photo credit:
東洋学報

Monographs in Tang Official Historiography: Perspectives from the Technical Treatises of the History of Sui (Sui Shu)

Editors:
Daniel Patrick Morgan, Damien Chaussende

Publication date:
09/09/2019

Publisher:
Springer International Publishing

Abstract:

This book examines the role of medieval authors in writing the history of ancient science. It features essays that explore the content, structure, and ideas behind technical writings on medieval Chinese state history. In particular, it looks at the Ten Treatises of the current History of Sui 隋書, which provide insights into the writing on the history of such fields as astronomy, astrology, omenology, economics, law, geography, metrology, and library science. Three treatises are known to have been written by Li Chunfeng 李淳風, one of the most important mathematicians, astronomers, and astrologers in Chinese history.

The book not only opens a new window on the figure of Li Chunfeng by exploring what his writings as a historian of science tell us about him as a scientist and vice versa, it also discusses how and on what basis the individual treatises were written.

The essays address such themes as (1) the recycling of sources and the question of reliability and objectivity in premodern history-writing; (2) the tug of war between conservatism and innovation; (3) the imposition of the author’s voice, worldview, and personal and professional history in writing a history of a field of technical expertise in a state history; (4) the degree to which modern historians are compelled to speak to their own milieu and ideological beliefs.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Prologue (Daniel P. Morgan and Damien Chaussende)


PART I: THE WORK OF LI CHUNFENG


Chapter 2: The Life and Intellectual Work of Li Chunfeng (602–670) (Howard L. Goodman)


Chapter 3: Numbers with Histories: Li Chunfeng on Harmonics and Astronomy (Daniel P. Morgan and Howard L. Goodman)


Chapter 4: Scholarship and Politics in Seventh Century China from the Viewpoint of Li Chunfeng’s Writing on Histories (Zhu Yiwen)


Chapter 5: The Compilation of the Astronomical Portion of the ‘Treatise on Harmono-Metrology and Mathematical Astronomy’ and its Impact (Li Liang)

Chapter 6: Heavenly Patterns (Daniel P. Morgan)


Chapter 7: The ‘Treatise on the Wuxing’ (Wuxing zhi) (Michael Nylan)


PART II: THE ANONYMOUS TREATISES


Chapter 8: The Treatise on Economics and Its Influences (Béatrice L'Haridon)


Chapter 9: The Treatise on Law (Frédéric Constant)


Chapter 10: Intertextuality, Customs and Regionalism in the ‘Geographical Treatise’ (Alexis Lycas)


Chapter 11: The Art of Producing a Catalogue: the Meaning of ‘Compilations’ for the Organisation of Ancient Knowledge in Tang Times (Pablo Ariel Blitstein)


Chapter 12: Epilogue: Treatises According to Tang Historian Liu Zhiji (Damien Chaussende)