ORACLE BONES: A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME IN CHINA PDF, EPUB, EBOOK

Peter Hessler | 491 pages | 17 Aug 2011 | HarperCollins Publishers Inc | 9780060826598 | English | New York, NY, United States Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present by Peter Hessler

It combines soulful story-telling with a journalist's keen eye for detail resulting in a story that transcends cultural divides and puts a human face on history as it unfolds today. Product Details Price. Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program. Become an affiliate. About the Author Peter Hessler is a staff writer at The New Yorker , where he served as the Beijing correspondent from to , and is also a contributing writer for National Geographic. Oh well, I will let Peter come first! View all 3 comments. Nov 24, Piotr rated it liked it Shelves: reviewed. This is a book written by a journalist. He doesn't hide it, writing about his reporting experience in China, so it's not a surprise. But the effect is that it feels like a lot of reporting packaged together, some of it pursuing a historical theme, but much of it quite random. If you overlook this clipped-together feel, the book is very informative, maybe even too detailed the author obviously had tonnes of notes to work with. It gives you insights into bits and pieces of China's ancient This is a book written by a journalist. It gives you insights into bits and pieces of China's ancient history, in particular the development of its writing, but also provides many glimpses of modern China, in the early s. This is ostensibly its concept, to weave history with modernity, but it feels a bit like a journalistic tool to bring together many disparate narratives that were sitting on the author's desk. The book weaves together several themes. One is Chinese archeologists, historians and their work uncovering the country's ancient history while contending with pressures of war, the Cultural Revolution and modernity. Another is the history itself, the oracle bones, the ancient inscriptions, the dynasties. Still another is the author's life in China in the late s and early s working as an American journalist in Beijing. The fourth is his friendship with an Uyghur in Beijing who becomes a key to the world of China's ethnic minorities and migrants, and who later emigrates to the US. And the fifth are the lives of his former students of English, who keep in touch with him through letters for many years afterwards, while struggling to adjust to living in booming coastal cities. Altogether, an interesting book, especially for someone like me who is fascinated with China and hungry to read anything about its people, language and history. It does feel a bit too long, too detailed at times and not as coherent as it could have been. Jan 04, Bob Reed rated it liked it. I loved Peter Hessler's first book, River Town. In fact, it was the first book I gave a 5-star rating. Oracle Bones fits into the same genre, but for me it fell somewhat flat. What made River Town so appealing to me was the personal stories of the people in Hessler's life. Oracle Bones has some of that, but it is set within a larger context. Hessler tries to superimpose his various experiences and the experiences of the Chinese people he knows onto the canvas of China's history. This obviously appealed to a lot of people, because the book got great reviews. However, it didn't work for me. I felt like the book was attempting to do too many things, and as a reader I felt pulled in too many different directions. Maybe the problem is me. I know that Hessler was trying to pull all these different vignettes together so that the sum was greater than the parts. Maybe I'm just too thick, because I didn't get how the pieces connected. For me, the sum substracted from the whole and produced something less than the parts. Nevertheless, Hessler is an outstanding writer and this book will be of interest to anybody who finds contemporary China as fascinating as I do. Aug 29, Brian Griffith rated it it was amazing Shelves: china , cultural-social-change , history-general. This book seems informal, without pre-set plan or structure. The author seems to wander around, hanging out with ordinary people. He follows a number of friendships over several years, switching back and forth between people and places. And slowly I realized this is the finest sort of journalism I've seen. The loose net of stories explores China from dozens of viewpoints--of Uighur traders, migrant teachers, aging archaeologists, factory girls. Gradually themes of investigation arise--into the This book seems informal, without pre-set plan or structure. Gradually themes of investigation arise--into the fate of an archeologist who died in the Cultural Revolution, or the story of China's script. There's no central theme. Just a world of lives and experiences spread across China, captured with unpretentious art. Apr 05, Alexis rated it really liked it Shelves: personal-narrative , china-general. This was an excellent narrative of Peter Hessler's time in China as a correspondent for various American newspapers and magazines. I thought overall it was a worthwhile read and a great audiobook for work. There wasn't anything groundbreaking in the format, but the personal stories there a three or four "main" Chinese storylines were interesting and well-framed. Would recommend to anyone interested in China or human-interest stories from China. Aug 26, Troy Parfitt rated it really liked it. Oracle Bones, Peter Hesslers second effort, or Part II, as it were, of his China trilogy, chronicles, mainly, the lives of various Chinese people, from archeologists and intellectuals to the authors friends and former students. Many of the narratives seem to be more detailed and more rewarding versions of his newspaper and magazine articles. Themes and characters recur and are given a sort of chronological treatment. The glue that binds the book together, the oracle bones, is also a sort of loose symbol for the volume in total. The oracle bones convey meaning; their messages and the stories surrounding the people who excavate, study, and try to make sense of them attempt to tell us something about Chinese culture. The people Hessler writes about, and the yarns pertaining to his effort to do so, also try to tell us something about Chinese culture. Oracle Bones is a long book, about pages of text. Some of the topics are interesting; others are not. But what was not interesting to me would be interesting to someone else. Readers like me are going to criticize no matter what you do, so you may as well scribble about your own interests. And Hessler is a good writer. His sentences are crisp, his paragraphs economical. His writing is better than in his first book, River Town, even if River Town is a better, or at least more coherent, story. And Peter deserves credit in general. In the sea of China experts, i. He dug deeply, he researched, he became a journalist, and he travelled extensively sometimes at considerable risk to talk to people and record what they had to say. He got published, and his China trilogy continues to sell. That said, I wish the book were a bit more passionate. He removes himself from the stories, but in the places where he inserts himself, i. But again, this is a matter of personal taste. As there is in any China book worth its salt, there are heaps of send-ups and bucketfuls of criticism, though they are rendered in a flat, ironical fashion. Oracle Bones did what it was supposed to; it made me want to read his third book, Country Driving. In total, a very good read. And, among the dozens of intriguing and memorable stories, there are excellent tips for would-be journalists and aspiring writers. Oracle Bones works as a starting- point for neophytes or a refresher for old China hands. I recommend it. Several years ago, Beth and I had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to chaperone a Study Abroad trip to China. The lead faculty member on that trip required her students to read a number of pre-trip books. Since I had never been to Asia before, I grabbed the reading list too and soaked up as much of it as I could. One of the books on her list was Peter Hessler's "River Town. It was one of the best of a very good batch of stories about China. I so enjoyed that memoir that I decided to read another of Hessler's books. In the various chapters and sections he describes different ways in which he tries to keep his visa up-to-date, make enough money to stay alive in Beijing and legitimize himself as a journalist. Some of the assignments he gets seem dangerous, others are just silly, but all are fascinating. He also keeps in touch with some of his former students and travels around the country to see them. And in still another sub-plot, he befriends a Uighur man who traffics in black market goods of many types but is really just trying to get to America somehow. The book has a picaresque and episodic quality to it. But although this is ostensibly a memoir, the book isn't really about Hessler himself. He frames the stories of his own life with a series of vignettes about Chinese archeology. He's especially interested in the discovery of a cache of "oracle bones" discovered early in the 20th century. These bones are actually bits of turtle shell with prophecies burned into them; they represent some of the earliest known examples of Chinese writing. Hessler does some research on the dig and becomes fascinated with one particular scholar, Chen Mengjia, an expert in the oracle bones, who died under mysterious circumstances during the Cultural Revolution. Hessler uses the framing device of the oracle bones and the mystery of the scholar's strange life and death to explore Chinese history, culture and identity. He juxtaposes these stories of the past with his own observations of the present. It's hard for me to say why I like Hessler's writing so much. Part of it may simply be that I like exploring exotic places and Hessler is an excellent tour guide to one such place, China. Another is probably Hessler's supreme empathy for his characters. No matter how strange, small-minded, wicked or stunted the people he meets may seem to be, he never sees them as anything less than human. He tries to understand their motives; he rarely judges them. And finally, he has a journalist's eye and knack for the telling detail. His acute observations bring out things that the casual tourist would almost certainly miss on their own. Whether he is describing late night lonely-hearts talk shows in the boom town of Shenzen, or observing wedding-day water taxi rides along the North Korean border, Hessler gives us new ways to think about what it means to be Chinese. If you ever yearned to learn more about the Far East, I encourage you to check out the books of Peter Hessler. He is an excellent traveling companion. View all 4 comments. This second volume of Hesslers China reportage is superior to River Town--in part, Hessler knows China much better now and, as a result, his gaze has broadened and deepened, no longer hemmed in by the realities of second-English teaching in a somewhat backwater town and by the limitations of interaction with a series of hyper-driven, consumer-mad students and rather quirky and sometimes sinister administrators. At the same time, twin shadows — on the one hand, that of the Cultural Revolution and the disturbing legacy of the Mao years and, on the other, the proto-capitalist displacements and abuses of the current epoch — hang over the book in ways that are both fascinating and depressing. Indeed, the China that emerges, especially in this second book, strikes one as inhumane, rigid, and jingoistic, as phobic as it is isolated and isolationist, as critical of the West as it is acquisitive and unprincipled. What appears to pervade the country is capitalism without democracy, surely no less dangerous than Communism without democracy. In any case, Oracle Bones is a fine book that meanders rather than narrates, touches on rather than deeply explores. It is much more than a travelogue and something less than scholarship. The stories of the authors former English language students who took such names as William Jefferson Foster, Nancy Drew and Emily Bronte are interesting and funny. The author does a great job of presenting the unique perspectives of the various Chinese people he encounters without being patronizing or judgmental, although he often puts a very funny spin on them. At first these chapters seem disparate but they ultimately come together beautifully. I didn't know much about China before so I found the various glimpses this book provides interesting. It's focused on three things-- a Chinese archaeologists of the 20th century and some of their discoveries, b a Uighur trader, and c recent students of the author who taught English for a while and how they're lives in some of China that has opened up to capitalism. It seems that everything in China that is suppose to help move it forward whether communism or capitalism and the government I didn't know much about China before so I found the various glimpses this book provides interesting. It seems that everything in China that is suppose to help move it forward whether communism or capitalism and the government programs to implement both is forced and ineffectual in their long term goals. And the people are just trying to get by. In the distant past, the country was peaceful and stable, but now it changes so fast. Certainly that's been the case since Reform and Opening, but to some degree the past two hundred years have been like that. We don't know where we are. We haven't found our road. In the early part of the twentieth century, the Chinese tried; some of them tried to find it in our own traditions, while others looked outside the country. This debate is still going on. I LOVE his writing. This book, like his other book River Town is a joy to read, and I tore through this. This book examines modern China from the point of view of many of its everyday citizens, especially those marginalized, while simultaneously exploring the previous generation's experiences through the pursuit of an archaelogical mystery. The most interesting things about this book were: the Chinese perspective on September 11th or at least the perspective of an American who is in China I LOVE his writing. The most interesting things about this book were: the Chinese perspective on September 11th or at least the perspective of an American who is in China during that time and receives information about the attacks through DVD bootlegs that patch together news footage with Hollywood movies , and the amazing comparisons between the U. Reading books like this makes me want to BE a writer, just so I could bring something so interesting into the world a minor obsession with Chinese culture helps. Jun 03, Kyle rated it it was amazing. I just read this before going to China. This is a must read if you plan on going to China and want to know what to expect, or if you want to know current China and how the distant and recent past has shaped China today. Hessler went to China in as a Peace Corps volunteer to teach English. And he stayed, becoming a newspaper reporter, then magazine writer, and now a non-fiction author. Hessler recently published the introductory and concluding articles in the National Geographic Special I just read this before going to China. Hessler recently published the introductory and concluding articles in the National Geographic Special Edition on China. That NG is excellent as well. If you only have time to read one book on China, this should be it. Nov 07, Gitanjali rated it really liked it. Hessler reads like a Dalrymple to me. Foreign guy with a strong interest in a big Asian country. Interesting stories about local people, lots of historical stuff. In all, a great read. I'll keep an eye out for more of his books. All that being said, I'm uncomfortable with the shades of white privilege I see throughout. Emily says it best: "I always enjoy talking with you, you are the one who knows my everything But every time you went back to Beijing after reporting in Shenzhen , I felt the Hessler reads like a Dalrymple to me. This popular biographical volume tells the story of three generations of women, including the author herself. This book is part-memoir and part-historical account, which makes it both informative and moving. This biography is an excellent choice for those seeking to understand the immense changes China has undergone in the past century from a deeply personal perspective. Copyright: Tom Carter. This collection of stunning portraits of people across China will be a hit among photography fans. Toggle navigation MENU. Let's Plan Your Trip. Most Read Blogs. Subscribe to our Newsletter. First name. Last name. We are in TripAdvisor's Hall of Fame! Our Popular Tours. Oracle Bones ( edition) | Open Library

Paperback in English - Largeprint edition. Places China. H Loading Related Books. May 8, , Harper Perennial in English. May 8, , Harper Perennial Paperback in English. July 22, Edited by Clean Up Bot. January 12, December 5, Edited by Open Library Bot. June 18, Edited by ImportBot. Product Details Price. Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program. Become an affiliate. About the Author Peter Hessler is a staff writer at The New Yorker , where he served as the Beijing correspondent from to , and is also a contributing writer for National Geographic. Reviews "An extraordinary, genre-defying book. In addition to the author, an American writer living in Beijing, the narrative follows Polat, a member of a forgotten ethnic minority, who moves to the United States in searchof freedom; William Jefferson Foster, who grew up in an illiterate family and becomes a teacher; Emily,a migrant factory worker in a city without a past; and Chen Mengjia, a scholar of oracle- bone inscriptions, the earliest known writing in East Asia, and a man whosetragic story has been lost since the Cultural Revolution. All are migrants, emigrants, or wanderers who find themselves far from home, their lives dramatically changed by historical forces they are struggling to understand. Peter Hessler excavates the past and puts a remarkable human face on the history he uncovers. In a narrative that gracefully moves between the ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes. This was an excellent narrative of Peter Hessler's time in China as a correspondent for various American newspapers and magazines. I thought overall it was a worthwhile read and a great audiobook for Oracle bones : a journey through time in China (Book, ) []

Rituals describing the process of creating oracle bones were recorded in Mongolian divination manuals dated to the early 20th century. According to these records, the seer cut a turtle plastron into a pentagonal shape and then used a knife to incise certain Chinese characters into the bone, depending on the seeker's questions. A twig of burning wood was repeatedly inserted into the grooves of the characters until a loud cracking noise was heard, and a radiating pattern of cracks produced. The cracks would be filled with India ink to make them easier for the shaman to read for important information about the future or current events. Oracle bones in China are much older than the Shang Dynasty. The earliest to date related use are unburned tortoise shells incised with signs, recovered from 24 graves at the early Neolithic [ cal BC] Jiahu site in Henan province. These shells are incised with signs which have some similarity to later Chinese characters see Li et al. A Late Neolithic sheep or small deer scapula from inner Mongolia may be the earliest divination object recovered yet. The scapula has numerous intentional burn marks on its blade and is dated indirectly from carbonized birchbark in a contemporaneous feature to calendar years BC cal BC. Several other isolated finds in Ganzu province also date to the late Neolithic, but the practice did not become widespread until the beginning of the Longshan dynasty in the latter half of the third millennium BC. The patterned carving and scorching of pyro-osteomancy began somewhat haphazardly during the early Bronze Age Longshan period, accompanying a significant increase in political complexity. Evidence for early Bronze Age Erlitou BC use of osteomancy is also present in the archaeological record, but like Longshan, also relatively unelaborated. Osteomancy rituals using oracle bones became most elaborate during the end of the Shang era BC. Shang Dynasty oracle bones include complete inscriptions, and their preservation is key to understanding the growth and development of the written form of the Chinese language. At the same time, oracle bones came to be associated with an expanded number of rituals. By Period IIb at Anyang , five main annual rituals and many other supplemental rituals were conducted accompanied by oracle bones. Most significantly, as the practice became more elaborate, access to the rituals and the knowledge derived from the rituals became restricted to the royal court. Osteomancy continued to a lesser degree after the Shang Dynasty ended and up into the Tang era A. See Flad for detailed information about the growth and change of divinatory practices with oracle bones in China. Divination workshops are known at Anyang in the late Shang BC period. There, 'practice-engraved divination records" have been found in abundance. The workshops have been characterized as schools, where student scribes used the same writing tools and surfaces i. Then the students copied more complex model texts including actual divination records as well as specially composed practice models. It appears that the Oracle Bone Workshop students worked with the masters, at the place where divination was performed and recorded. Oracle bones were first identified in the late 19th-century, at archaeological sites such as Yinxu, a late Shang Dynasty capital near Anyang. Although their role in the invention of Chinese writing is still being debated, research into the large caches of oracle bones has demonstrated how the script developed over time, the structure of the written language, and the variety of topics about which the Shang rulers required divine advice about. Over 10, oracle bones were found at the site of Anyang, primarily ox shoulder blades and turtle shells carved with archaic forms of Chinese calligraphy, used for divination between the 16th and 11th century BC. There is a bone artifact-making workshop at Anyang which apparently recycled sacrificial animal carcasses. Most of the objects produced there were pins, awls, and arrowheads, but the shoulder blades of the animals are missing, leading researchers to surmise this was a source for oracle bone production elsewhere. Other research on oracle bones is focused on the inscriptions, which do much to enlighten scholars about the Shang society. Many include the names of Shang kings, and references to animal and sometimes human sacrifice dedicated to natural spirits and ancestors. Consumption, exchange Antiquity 85 Childs-Johnson E. That sense of time—the contrast between past and present, and the rhythms that emerge in a vast, ever-evolving country—is brilliantly illuminated by Peter Hessler in Oracle Bones , a book that explores the human side of China's transformation. Hessler tells the story of modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world as seen through the lives of a handful of ordinary people. In addition to the author, an American writer living in Beijing, the narrative follows Polat, a member of a forgotten ethnic minority, who moves to the United States in searchof freedom; William Jefferson Foster, who grew up in an illiterate family and becomes a teacher; Emily,a migrant factory worker in a city without a past; and Chen Mengjia, a scholar of oracle-bone inscriptions, the earliest known writing in East Asia, and a man whosetragic story has been lost since the Cultural Revolution. All are migrants, emigrants, or wanderers who find themselves far from home, their lives dramatically changed by historical forces they are struggling to understand. Peter Hessler excavates the past and puts a remarkable human face on the history he uncovers. In a narrative that gracefully moves between the ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes. This was an excellent narrative of Peter Hessler's time in China as a correspondent for various American newspapers and magazines. I thought overall it was a worthwhile read and a great audiobook for Enlightening despite being not as cohesive as it could've been. The separate stories Hessler tells are keenly observed and intelligently told, but he's not entirely successful at fitting them into one

Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China

In Oracle Bones , Peter Hessler explores the tension between narrative and story, past and present, China and the West. Whereas his first book, River Town , focused on geography and sense of place, Oracle Bones is concerned with history and time. To the east, another former student, William Jefferson Foster — he took his name in honor of President Clinton — struggles to rise from poverty as a migrant in the boomtowns of Zhejiang province. In Oracle Bones , Hessler examines how average Chinese respond to the rapid changes at the turn of the century, creating new lives and identities. While researching in Henan, Hessler also stumbles onto the story of Chen Mengjia, a brilliant poet and oracle bone scholar who was hounded to suicide in , at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. In an attempt to understand what happened to Chen, Hessler interviews dozens of people across China, Taiwan, and the United States. Along the way, Hessler meets dozens of archaeologists and scholars of ancient history, who introduce him to new ways of thinking about the creation of China and Chinese culture. Special arrangements for viewing must be discussed in advance and approved by the curators. There a number of different oracle bone collections worldwide. Choose Yes please to open the survey in a new browser window or tab, and then complete it when you are ready. Chinese oracle bones. Detail from a Shang dynasty oracle bone Or. Your request to send this item has been completed. APA 6th ed. Note: Citations are based on reference standards. However, formatting rules can vary widely between applications and fields of interest or study. The specific requirements or preferences of your reviewing publisher, classroom teacher, institution or organization should be applied. The E-mail Address es field is required. Please enter recipient e-mail address es. The E-mail Address es you entered is are not in a valid format. Please re- enter recipient e-mail address es. You may send this item to up to five recipients. The name field is required. Please enter your name. The E-mail message field is required. Please enter the message. Please verify that you are not a robot. Would you also like to submit a review for this item? https://files8.webydo.com/9592117/UploadedFiles/C204EB49-EE8E-C418-F591-4EDB8E30285B.pdf https://static.s123-cdn-static.com/uploads/4639438/normal_602063d4c8a63.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9586928/UploadedFiles/6BADB79C-2F13-CFAF-F706-D28799E3BEA6.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9589634/UploadedFiles/C810CD25-267B-B706-AE4E-9979580C2A1B.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9586657/UploadedFiles/7101AF96-7C4E-FF59-7FB3-207D49762256.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9591501/UploadedFiles/764DE336-3A63-76BB-9446-93EBDEC30394.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9586018/UploadedFiles/F98EB0F5-5DB5-7995-75B2-9C0C52C37B64.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9589883/UploadedFiles/AE2E689F-88DE-6A2E-F061-621AE55AFAEB.pdf