Page 17 - Ming_China_Courts_and_Contacts_1400_1450 Craig lunas

strong hand of the Hongwu and Yongle emperors shared by 6 Abu-Lughod 1991.
many intellectuals in the 16th century. The role that the 7 O’Rourke and Williamson, 2009, 663; T’ien Ju-kang, 1981
30
Zheng He voyages have played in modern Chinese (discussed by Tansen Sen in Chapter 3 of this volume).
understandings has also been enormous, starting perhaps 8 Goldsmith 1769, II, 5–6, also cited in Clunas 2008, 8–9.
9 Goody 2010.
with the 1905 essay by Liang Qichao (1873–1929) on ‘Our 10 Didi Kirsten Tatlow 2014, http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.
Motherland’s Great Navigator Zheng He’ (Zuguo da hanghaijia com/2014/10/14/xi-jinping-on-exceptionalism-with-chinese-
Zheng He zhuan 祖國大航海家鄭和傳), and carrying through characteristics/?_r=0 [accessed 20 November 2015].
to his role as a popular cultural presence in television 11 For a recent example which includes consideration of the Ming in
its framework see Duindam 2016.
historical dramas, science fiction and even computer 12 Smith 2003a, 10.
games. If arguably any period of Chinese history saw 13 Von Glahn 2003b, 210.
31
developments which would benefit from close examination 14 Von Glahn 2003b, 209–10.
(and surely no era seems eventless to those who live their 15 Smith 2003a, 22.
lives in it) it may well be true that 1403 to 1449 saw ‘forty-six 16 Smith 2003b, 97.
17 Ho 1985, 106.
years that changed China’, even if no public exhibition could 18 Ben Cheneb and Suter 2015.
be so titled. What those changes were, and how they will 19 Atwell 2002; Elvin 2004; Brook 2010, 270.
continue to play out into the future, are topics which go 20 Parker 2013.
beyond the scope of the essays assembled here. It is hoped 21 Li Bozhong 2003, 151.
22 A promised forthcoming volume on ‘Art, Politics, and Palace
however that this collection goes some way to indicating Eunuchs in Ming China’ by Professor Scarlett Jang of Williams
what we now know, and what lines of enquiry might prove College will be an important contribution to this topic, see http://
most productive for further study. art.williams.edu/profile/jjang/.
23 Toyka 2014, 108–18.
24 Duindam 2016, 214–18.
Notes 25 Li Bozhong 2003, 159.
1 The quote is from Fairbank, Reischauer and Craig 1973, 178. For 26 Birge 2003, 220.
an expression of more recent views see Robinson 2008. 27 Pollock 2006, 283.
2 Brook 2010. 28 West 2003, 358–60.
3 Smith 2003a, 1. 29 West 2003, 331, 347.
4 Smith 2003b, 73, 85. 30 Gregory 2014; Ditmanson 2015, 31.
5 Von Glahn 2003a, 64. 31 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He [accessed 21 November
2015].

Introduction | 7