http://www.froginawell.net/china The China History Group Blog Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:03:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en After my posting last year of "Pigs. Shit, and Chinese History," Sigrid Schmalzer was kind enough to share this map which she drew based on the works of the Ming dynasty scholar Li Shizhen (李時珍; 1518-1593) mostly widely known for his Bencao Gangmu (本草綱目). It looks to me as ... http://www.froginawell.net/china/2008/07/pigs-again-li-shizhens-ming-dynasty-map/ I have updated the Taiwan Bookstores page on the EALA wiki, adding two books and updating the link for SMC Publishing. If you are in Taipei and are looking for a larger selection of academic related works, especially in Chinese, you might want to look at some of the stores ... http://www.froginawell.net/china/2008/06/taiwan-bookstores-eala-page-updated/ Strange Maps (quite possibly the coolest blog in the universe) has this map of more-or-less Han China. The map comes from here, and is part of a summary of a "rise of China" article from Stratfor which is apparently some shop selling (very expensive) geopolitical analysis. Unless the Stratfor article is ... http://www.froginawell.net/china/2008/06/changeless-china-post-3743-in-a-series/ Reading through 中华民国文化史 (Cultural History of the Chinese Republic) ((编 史全生，吉林文史 )) I found something interesting in the section on 国术. 国术 is a term for what today would be called 武术, i.e. martial arts. Although there was a lot of interest in physical education in China in the 20s ... http://www.froginawell.net/china/2008/06/you-lost-to-a-girl/ Today is the first day of summer here in Pennsylvania, which must mean it is time for a reading from 呂氏春秋 Lüshi Chunqiu LSCQ is best described as a philosophical encyclopedia of the Qin period, probably composed around 239 B.C.E. In part the book is a guide to rulers, and ... http://www.froginawell.net/china/2008/06/summers-here/ Apparently China produces a lot of cement From the Oil Drum, via Andrew Sullivan, Another in our series of cool teaching graphics. http://www.froginawell.net/china/2008/06/china-under-construction/ For those of you who missed it, Al Gore endorsed Barack Obama. I'm not sure how much this matters. Very few Gore supporters were going to vote for McCain. Still, Americans tend to take these celebrity endorsements pretty seriously, or at least campaigns like to talk about them. Chinese ... http://www.froginawell.net/china/2008/06/celebrity-endorsements/ As a profession anyway. Historians are notorious for thinking that the past matters a lot, and most of us even think the past matters even if it has nothing to do with the present. (We're weird that way) If you are a China historian, however there are always peoplewho are ... http://www.froginawell.net/china/2008/06/chinese-history-sucks/