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Wars with the Xiongnu: a Translation from Zizhi Tongjian. Wars with the Xiongnu: a Translation from Zizhi Tongjian [Download] Wars with the Xiongnu: A Translation from Zizhi tongjian. Wars with the Xiongnu: A Translation from Zizhi tongjian. nCVO7iDwc Wars with the Xiongnu: A Translation from Zizhi NQK8mmIkg tongjian. 63JHfH47p QZ-80208 YCBzE648T USmix/Data/US-2009 JKsMFFh1l 3.5/5 From 274 Reviews TehzMY6tP Joseph P. Yap MWNDJU6IE audiobook | *ebooks | Download PDF | ePub | DOC p6imLxkoK nstCLywnT IniLucEXO WIMtiNcJw 23YUt3v4G lFSLm6T2b TOQKz16eC 0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Fascinating HistoryBy PSKgiXbZt Hamilton V Bowser JrFascinating translation of a significant era in Chinese sjfAfYU86 history. It includes small tidbits from the author that help clarify the context of FAI6Ef12S some of the events. Worth reading.7 of 7 people found the following review 2XDlHOvXw helpful. Han DynastyBy Benjamin TrovatoDespite its title this is a history of the EFihURXhJ Han Dynasty up to the death of Wang Mang. It is a translation of a Chinese uDXVoUibX work of 1084AD. It is organized by year, but there is no index. Yap's English is fsEHi7KbV not always orthodox, but one always knows what he means.8 of 8 people found pElBQppkt the following review helpful. modern politics and conflicts already happened in HgUiSDG4K ancient chinaBy OregonCoastHistory repeats itself probably because we C7Uhb4OUo humans do not learn from it. Alas, the killing and the dying as it occurs today rCMnq1qRx arose from reasons similar to what people in China experienced centuries jx8pRK87K ago.Yap's translation is somber reading due to its content. Yet the book is euGMISJlD delightful because Yap brings past events to life. Numerous glosses and SFBf33o0V comments enrich the often terse text of the original "Zizhi tongian".Yap helpfully includes all terms in Chinese writing (the old, pre-cultural-revolution script still used in Taiwan) that is indispensable for students of Chinese classics who learned different pronunciations of proper nouns. If the book had been written solely in Pinyin, I would have been completely lost.The book almost reads like a stack of newspapers. The eerie similarity between the "Zizhi tongian" and today's embedded journalists writing from the front lines is frightening and fascinating. The book is quite long, however, and one can easily tire from it, as the Song emperor Shen Zong must have when he received the 354-volume chronology in the year 1084. (Yap's translation is a small subset of Sima Guang's book.)This book is recommended to practitioners of foreign diplomacy, international relations, and national security who are open to the idea of learning from history. Those of you who deal with the modern Chinese would do well to understand the culture, philosophy, and realpolitik that the Chinese have practiced through the ages. You would learn much more of the Chinese mind than from Sun Tzu's "The art of war" (Sunzi Bingfa).One example: a military strategist remarked "Our enemy regards us as cowards. Let us use that to our advantage. We will pretend to retreat in fear, and lure the enemy into a trap." Amazingly, his colleagues (army generals) did not consider this move as dishonorable. Would you be surprised if modern Chinese government or business behaved similarly?Read a few pages at a time, put the book down, and live your life a tiny bit wiser. For we do not seem to change. Knowledge of the past prepares us for the present. This volume of - Wars with the Xiongnu is about a nomadic confederation - the Kingdom of Xiongnu to the north of ancient China, most notably for the relentless, atrocious and bloodletting wars that lasted for over two centuries with the mighty Han dynasty, comparable in size and power as Rome during its height. The roaming Xiongnu people, so powerful boasted of having a kingdom striding from Eastern Siberia to the west at the Altai Mountains in Central Asia, with territories so vast - even larg ....
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