Period of division
W.J.F. Jenner, Memories of Loyang (1981), is a political history of the Wei dynasty during the Six Dynasties period. Discussions on religious development during the period include Holmes Welch, Taoism: The Parting of the Way, rev. ed. (1965); and Erik Zürcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China, 3rd ed. (2007), a study of the formation of gentry Buddhism.
Sui and Tang periods
The best general history of these dynasties is in vol. 3 of The Cambridge History of China (1979). The most important work on the Sui period is Arthur F. Wright, The Sui Dynasty (1978). His two studies “The Formation of Sui Ideology 581–604,” in John K. Fairbank (ed.), Chinese Thought and Institutions (1957, reissued 1973), and “Sui Yang-ti: Personality and Stereotype,” in Arthur F. Wright (ed.), The Confucian Persuasion (1960, reissued 1983) are also useful. Woodbridge Bingham, The Founding of the T’ang Dynasty: The Fall of Sui and Rise of T’ang (1941, reprinted 1970), gives a clear account of the period from 607 to 624.
Analyses of the early Tang are presented in Howard J. Wechsler, Mirror to the Son of Heaven: Wei Cheng at the Court of T’ang T’ai-tsung (1974), and Offerings of Jade and Silk: Ritual and Symbol in the Legitimation of the T’ang Dynasty (1985). R.W.L. Guisso, Wu Tse-t’ien and the Politics of Legitimation in T’ang China (1978), is a comprehensive study of the Empress Wu’s reign.
Edwin G. Pulleyblank, The Background to the Rebellion of An Lu-shan (1955, reprinted 1982), gives a full account of every aspect of the reign of Xuanzong. Also interesting on the politics of the same period is P.A. Herbert, Under the Brilliant Emperor: Imperial Authority in T’ang China as Seen in the Writings of Chang Chiu-ling (1978). The An Lushan rebellion is described in Howard S. Levy (ed. and trans.), Biography of An Lu-shan (1960), a well-annotated translation.
There is no satisfactory book-length account of the following period. The rebellions of the 780s are described briefly in Denis Twitchett, “Lu Chih (754–805),” in Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett (eds.), Confucian Personalities (1962, reissued 1980). The mysterious reign of Shunzong has not been subjected to a modern analytic study, but the principal source is translated in Bernard S. Solomon (ed. and trans.), The Veritable Record of the T’ang Emperor Shun-tsung (1955). There is some account of the subsequent reigns in Arthur Waley, The Life and Times of Po Chü-i, 772–846 A.D. (1949, reissued 2005), but the historical analysis is somewhat outdated.
For the period after 847 even the Chinese primary documentation becomes thin. The only events that have attracted attention of Western scholars are the rebellions, as in Howard S. Levy (ed. and trans.), Biography of Huang Ch’ao, 2nd rev. ed. (1961); and Gungwu Wang, Divided China: Preparing for Reunification, 883–947, 2nd ed. (2007).
A number of important studies on Tang political history, taking account of modern Japanese and Chinese scholarship, are included in Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett (eds.), Perspectives on the T’ang (1973). John Curtis Perry and Bardwell L. Smith (eds.), Essays on T’ang Society: The Interplay of Social, Political, and Economic Forces (1976), is also a significant collection.
Tang finances and economic problems are examined in Denis Twitchett, Financial Administration Under the T’ang Dynasty, 2nd ed. (1970); and Wallace Johnson (trans.), The T’ang Code, vol. 1 (1979), is a translation of the main documents on Tang law. Surveys of social history include Denis Twitchett, Land Tenure and the Social Order in T’ang and Sung China (1962), and Birth of the Chinese Meritocracy: Bureaucrats and Examinations in T’ang China (1976); as well as the relevant sections of Étienne Balazs, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy, trans. from the French (1964, reprinted 1972). Important evidence from Dunhuang is detailed in Lionel Giles, Six Centuries of Tunhuang (1944). More information is in the eyewitness account by a contemporary Japanese monk in Edwin O. Reischauer (trans.), Ennin’s Diary (1955), with a companion volume, Ennin’s Travels in T’ang China (1955, reprinted 1990).
Three works by Edward H. Schafer are extremely important for the light they throw on the cosmopolitan nature of Tang society: The Vermilion Bird: T’ang Images of the South (1967), The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T’ang Exotics (1963, reprinted 1985), and Shore of Pearls (1970), dealing with the early history of Hainan Island. Gungwu Wang, The Nanhai Trade (1958, reissued 2003), surveys Chinese overseas trade and relations with Southeast Asia. Denis C. Twitchett Benjamin Elman
Five Dynasties, Ten Kingdoms, and Song periods
A comprehensive survey from the fall of the Tang to the Mongol conquest of the Nan Song is The Cambridge History of China, vol. 5, part 1, The Sung Dynasty and Its Precursors, 907–1279, ed. by Denis Twitchett and Paul Jakov Smith (2009). Edward H. Schafer, The Empire of Min (1954), has an excellent sinological summary on this kingdom in the South. Works on conquest dynasties in the North include Hok-lam Chan, The Historiography of the Chin Dynasty: Three Studies (1970), and Legitimation in Imperial China: Discussions Under the Jurchen-Chin Dynasty, 1115–1234 (l984); and Jing-shen Tao, The Jurchen in Twelfth-Century China: A Study of Sinicization (1976). The significance of the Song and varying interpretations are given in James T.C. Liu and Peter J. Golas (eds.), Change in Sung China: Innovation or Renovation? (1969); Edward A. Kracke, Jr., Civil Service in Early Sung China, 960–1067 (1953, reissued 1968); two works attempting to relate general trends through historical figures, James T.C. Liu, Ou-yang Hsiu, an Eleventh-Century Neo-Confucianist, trans. from the Chinese (1967), and Reform in Sung China: Wang An-shih (1021–1086) and His New Policies (1959); and Brian E. McKnight, Village and Bureaucracy in Southern Sung China (1971). Jacques Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250–1276 (1962; originally published in French, 1959), provides vivid descriptions. Also useful are Patricia Buckley Ebrey (ed. and trans.), Family and Property in Sung China: Yüan Ts’ai’s Precepts for Social Life (1984); Thomas H.S. Lee, Government Education and Examinations in Sung China (1985); Brian E. McKnight (trans.), The Washing Away of Wrongs: Forensic Medicine in Thirteenth-Century China (1981); and Bettine Birge, Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction in Sung and Yüan China (960–1368) (2001).
The Yuan dynasty