WULOLIFE
"Mediocrity" Author: Wang Di Publisher: CITIC Publishing Group
"Mediocrity" Author: Wang Di Publisher: CITIC Publishing Group
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Description
Introduction · · · · · ·
Is it important for ordinary people like us today to understand Chinese society in the past?
Many aspects of our culture, traditions, customs, and aesthetics are still deeply influenced by the social behaviors and cultural traditions that have been formed over a long period of time in the past. Only by understanding the past can we live more freely in the present.
Usually, the history we know is mostly about kings, generals, intellectual elites, heroes, and heroes, but less about the lives of ordinary people. This book focuses on micro-history, using a combination of micro and macro methods to gradually extend from the stories of ordinary people and families to all aspects of Chinese society, thus showing population changes, food, clothing, housing, transportation, the formation of rural and urban areas, secret societies, customs, literati and education, religious beliefs, law and society, clans and families, etc., allowing everyone to see China in more detail.
This book is divided into two volumes.
The first volume, "People, Daily Life and Culture," focuses on the daily life and culture of the Chinese people. Why do people "judge people by their appearance"? How do clothes reflect class and social changes? What is the relationship between kitchen necessities and people's environment and living habits? What is the unique development history of ancient sedan chairs, cars, and ships? From the market to the town, how did this network of circulation and distribution come into being? Are the real "brothels" and "washes" the brothels and washes we think they are? Why did the ancients like to look through the almanac? "Ten miles apart, different customs." What brought people together in traditional communities? Was it really impossible to move without "etiquette" in ancient times?
The second volume, "Family, Group and Law", talks about family, group and law. Family is the cornerstone of traditional Chinese society, and the power of clan should not be underestimated. Is clan a company that makes money from money? In traditional Confucian society, where does the formulation of law come from? How were the tortures and instruments of punishment in traditional society invented? In addition to the government, how are the three religions and nine classes in the underworld and the gangs managed? Are there "primary school to junior high school, high school entrance examination and college entrance examination" in traditional Chinese society? "Everything is inferior, only reading is superior", do literati really "play calligraphy, painting, chess, poetry, wine and flowers" and live poetically?
About the Author
Wang Di, a PhD in history from Johns Hopkins University, USA, is currently a professor at the University of Macau.
He was a professor of history at Texas A&M University, co-editor of the English academic quarterly Frontiers of Chinese History (FHC), and president of the Chinese History Association in the United States. His works have won the Best Book Award of the American Urban History Research Association, the first Luliang Literature Award, and the Outstanding Academic Book Award of the Chinese Communist Party History Research Association.
It mainly focuses on the study of Chinese social history, urban history, new cultural history, daily life history and micro history.
His representative works include "Stepping out of the Closed World: A Study of Regional Society in the Upper Yangtze River (1644-1911)", "Street Culture: Chengdu's Public Space, Lower Class People and Local Politics (1870-1930)", "Teahouse: Chengdu's Public Life and Microcosm (1900-1950)", "Teahouse: The Decline and Revival of Chengdu's Public Life (1950-2000)", "Pao Brothers: Violence and Order in Western Sichuan Villages in the 1940s", "From Measurement, Narrative to Text Interpretation: A Methodological Turn to Empirical Research in Social History", "The Teahouse on the Corner", "The Disappearing Ancient City", etc.
