Fri03292024

Last update08:15:27 pm

Back Art Blog 1587, a Year of No Significance-One of the GREAT books in the China literature

1587, a Year of No Significance-One of the GREAT books in the China literature

Article Index
1587, a Year of No Significance-One of the GREAT books in the China literature
One of the GREAT books in the China literature
A *must* read for all serious students of Chinese history!
All Pages

1587, a Year of No Significance (traditional Chinese: 萬曆十五年; pinyin: Wanli Shiwunian) is Chinese historian Ray Huang's most famous work. First published by Yale University Press in 1981, it examines how a number of seemingly insignificant events in 1587 might have caused the downfall of the Ming empire. The views expressed in the book follow the macro history perspective.

The Chinese title, meaning "the fifteenth year of the Emperor Wanli", is how the year 1587 was expressed in the Chinese calendar: the era name of the emperor at the time, followed by which year of his reign it was.

Ray Huang

Although Huang had completed the manuscript by 1976, no publisher would accept it at first, as it was not serious enough for an academic work, but was too serious for popular non-fiction.

The work has been translated into a number of different languages: Chinese, Japanese, German and French. 



Last Updated on Sunday, 01 May 2011 18:14