An innovative interdisciplinary work that sheds new light on Manchu rule.
The mechanisms by which the Manchu rulers of Qing dynasty China maintained their hegemony over a vast empire have long fascinated scholars, with New Qing History models challenging older Sinicization models in recent years. Images of War adds a new dimension to these debates, from an unlikely source: art history. Two seemingly disparate fields of inquiry are brought together in this innovative work, which presents Ming and Qing painting and visual culture in dialogue with Ming and Qing military history, offering a fresh new way of understanding the establishment and operation of imperial Qing cultural hegemony.
List of Figures
Introduction
Part I: Military Achievement and the Official Career: Ming Images of War and Pictures of Personal Meritorious Deeds
Chapter 1: Ming Images of War and the Visual Culture of Officialdom
Part II: Military Attainment and the Great Qing: Literary and Martial Expressions of Military Achievement from Hong Taiji to Early Qianlong
Chapter 2: Military Achievement and the Manchus: "Pictorial Veritable Records of Taizu" and Hong Taiji's Construction of Manchu Identity
Chapter 3: Military Achievement and the "Sagely Ancestor" (?? Shengzu): The Kangxi Court's Consolidation of Martial Attainment Culture
Part III: Martial Prowess and the Empire: Qianlong Images of Military Achievement in Light of the Western Campaigns
Chapter 4: The Emergence of Battle Pictures and the Pavilion of Purple Splendour as an Exhibition Space for Imperial Military Prowess
Chapter 5: Obtaining Victory in the Pacification of the Zunghar and Muslim Regions and the Military Prowess of the Empire
Chapter 6: The Establishment of the Imagery of Martial Attainment
Conclusion
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
Ma Ya-chen is a professor at the Institute of History, National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan.
