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| Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man | 
 enlarge | Author: Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $4.71
You Save: $20.24 (81%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 50762
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.3
Dewey Decimal Number: 895.184809
ASIN: B0015VP1AM
Publication Date: September 20, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The renowned historian captures a critical moment in Chinese history
Celebrated China scholar Jonathan Spence vividly brings to life seventeenth-century China through this biography of Z hang Dai, recognized as one of the finest historians and essayists of the Ming dynasty. Born in 1597, Z hang Dai was forty-seven when the Ming dynasty, after more than two hundred years of rule, was overthrown by the Manchu invasion of 1644. Having lost his fortune and way of life, Z hang Dai fled to the countryside and spent his final forty years recounting the time of creativity and renaissance during Ming rule before the violent upheaval of its collapse. This absorbing tale of Z hang Dais life illuminates the transformation of a culture and reveals how Chinas history affects its place in the world today.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 I kept wishing for more memories. August 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As usual, Memories is a well researched Spence book. However, this reads more like a compilation of graduate student papers that were edited by Spence. It could also serve as a very long preface to the actual works. There are very few translated/paraphrased passages and a lot of interpretation and overview. We are told that the works themselves are huge and highly nuanced with important references to (for most western readers) obscure literary figures.
The translated passages are evocative. The analysis is dry. I kept wishing for more first person memories.
 Engrossing portrait of an interesting man in a different culture May 7, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I bought this book on a whim, partly because of interesting reviews.
But once I got it, I got hooked. It is a very readable book about a man who lived in a very different culture from our own. It is organized by theme, rather than by date. That is, it is not so much a biography as a portrait of the man and his times and the culture in which he lived. There are mini-sketches of the struggle of the upper classes to pass the scholarly tests for admission to the bureaucracy (a struggle that sometimes consumed decades); of Zhang Dai's mini-adventure with a very special tea that he discovered; the role and prevalence of prostitutes in his culture; his trips to visit natural spots, shrines, and monasteries, and much more.
I tend to dip into many books, but read very few cover-to-cover. This one I'm reading cover-to-cover and almost done. So on my scale of interesting-ness it rates high; much higher than I expected when I bought the book.
It is a portrait of a very privileged but also a very human person. If the idea of spending a few hours with such a person appeals to you, then I think you'll enjoy this book.
And if you're like I was -- only vaguely intriged -- I'd recommend that you give it a try. Give serendipity a chance to strike. :-)
Not a full biography February 29, 2008
According to the review by the Washington Post ,"historian Zhang Dai's long life, which began in 1597 and ended around 1680, spanned the Ming Dynasty's final, turbulent decades and its overthrow by the invading Manchus. His writings were an attempt to record a lost way of life. They include a Ming dynastic history, profiles of public figures and dreamlike sketches of scenes from his youth. Spence draws on these documents, additional research by other scholars and his deep knowledge of Ming culture to portray the inner universe of a remarkably versatile and sympathetic figure.".
I have read many books by Jonathan Spence.His historical works on China in particular "Treason by the Book" are excellent.Spence said he took several years to research and write this latest work of his. Unfortunately he appears to have only scratched the surface. This is not a full biography.I finished this book knowing only sketches of Zhang Dai.In that respect i was disappointed with this book which i had earlier bought with great expectations.
Pleasurable trip back in time January 26, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book is an evocative depiction of Ming society in China through the eyes of contemporary historian Zhang Dai. It's not a history book or a biography, but rather a snapshot of life in the late Ming dynasty. Particularly fascinating are the details of everyday gentry life, particularly in its varied and colorful amusements and hobbies, such as staging plays, tea connoisseurship, how people celebrated holidays, music, boating, antique collecting, poetry, etc., and in the duties expected of gentry, such as studying for and passing the bureaucratic exams to hold office. Also very interesting were the descriptions of Zhang's various relations (grandfathers, uncles and cousins) who varied to extremes in character and revealed much about different expressions of human nature within the social norms of the times. I felt this book truly brought ancient China alive for the reader and that alone makes this book a worthwhile read.
Memories of a Ming Man January 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is very well written and well worth reading. It depicts the life and the world of Zheng Dai, a well-educated bureaucrat (who did not go very high in the hierarchy but still managed to write the history of the Ming dynasty till its overthrow by the Manchus), but also many other interesting characters.
An extract will show how much this book, though supposed to happen in the 17th century, is still very relevant today.
"Within five years (...) this tea that Zhang and his uncle had named Snow Orchid had ousted its rivals from the conoisseurs' circles. But it was not long before unscrupulous businessmen began to market inferior teas under the Snow Orchid brand name, and those who drank it seemed not to know they were being gulled. A short time later, even the water source itself was lost. First, entrepreneurs from Shaoxing tried to use the water for wine making or else opened tea shops right by the spring itself. Next, a greedy local official tried to monopolize the spring's water for his own use and sealed it off for a while. But that increased the spring's reputation to such an extent that rowdy crowds began to gather at the shrine, demanding food, firewood and other handouts from the monks there and then brawling when they were refused. At last, to regain their earlier tranquility, the monks polluted their spring by filling it with manure, rotting bambo and the overflow from their own drains."
Professor Spence is a great historian and we are all in his debt.
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