Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

by Peter A. Lorge (Editor)

The period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907-960 B.C.E) has long been treated as an anomaly in the history of China, an age of great disunity between the empires of the Tang and the Song dynasties. Breaking with previous scholarship on China's middle period, this book presents individual studies that focus on the art, culture, and politics of the interregnum, challenging underlying assumptions about the unitary nature of dynastic culture and its value as a category of historical analysis. This volume understands these decades as a time of important transition in which the incipient cultural shifts of the mature Tang dynasty turned into the foundations of Song society. Consequently it highlights the complex narrative processes that gave birth to Song culture.

Genres: History, China, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2010

About the author

Peter Lorge is a historian of 10th and 11th century Chinese, with particular interest in Chinese military, political and social history. He is author of Chinese Martial Arts: From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press, 2012), The Asian Military Revolution: From Gunpowder to the Bomb (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China (Routledge, 2005), which described the development of the Chinese empire in response to the demands of war and internal control. Lorge is editor of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (The Chinese University Press, 2011). He also edited Warfare in China to 1600 (Ashgate, 2005) in The International Library of Essays on Military History series. In 2007, he established a new book series with Routledge, Asian States and Empires, five of these books have been published. He is currently editing a collected work called Debating War in Chinese History for Brill.

Peter Lorge is one of the founders, and former executive board members, of the Chinese Military History Society. He won the Harriet S. Gilliam Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2004, and has appeared on CNN to discuss Chinese military affairs. In 2007, he attended The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies workshop on teaching National Security at Basin Harbor.

Reviews

[Raymond Goss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Five dynasties and Ten Kingdoms presents scholarly research and assessment of the period between the Tang and Song dynasties. I was impressed with the information and data presented. The book started off with some stories of key leaders that were interesting. However the book got dry and I would probably been happier with a summary of each if a full story couldn't be told.
In later chapters, there is a discussion on the architecture of temple buildings (some that I've seen first hand) that is indicative of the period. While this too is interesting and tells a little about the migration and influence of artisans of the period, it seemed incongruous with the rest of the material. If Chinese history intrigues you, I recommend reading this via Kindle Unlimited.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly just skimmed through this. While this is definitely not meant for the general reader, there are some interesting tidbits for someone interested in this period of Chinese history who is not yet an expert.