Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

2 results

  • 3 - The Age of Cosmopolitanism

  • Charles Holcombe, University of Northern Iowa
  • Book:
    A History of East Asia
    Published online:
    15 May 2025
    Print publication:
    05 June 2025, pp 61-97

  • Summary

    China was plunged into four centuries of almost continuous division following the collapse of the Han Dynasty. Most of the empires and kingdoms in north China during this period, moreover, had ethnically non-Han Chinese rulers. Despite the remarkably multiethnic character of the era, however, there was also considerable institutional and cultural continuity. A cosmopolitan elite culture took shape, which notably included originally South Asian Buddhism but also many Chinese political traditions and literacy in the written Chinese language, that was shared now throughout East Asia. While Korea during this period was neither unified nor uniform, and Japan was also just in the process of unifying, organized and fully historical states in both Korea and Japan first emerged in this period. Meanwhile, the nucleus of what would become Vietnam remained loosely part of empires based in China during these years.

  • 24 - Regional study: trans-Saharan trade

  • from Part II - Trans-regional and regional perspectives
  • Edited by Craig Benjamin, Grand Valley State University, Michigan
  • Book:
    The Cambridge World History
    Published online:
    05 May 2015
    Print publication:
    16 April 2015, pp 662-686

  • Summary

    The written Chinese language played a critical role in shaping the emergence of a distinctively East Asian cultural zone. The development of writing in Bronze Age China is thus fundamental to both Chinese and East Asian civilization more broadly. Although tantalizing examples of markings that seem to resemble writing have been discovered from earlier periods, the first unmistakable examples of written language in China appear on the 'oracle bones' that were used for divination at the late Shang court. During the fourth and early fifth centuries, Xianbei bands in the northeast established a series of dynasties in the area of southwestern Manchuria and northeastern China proper. In the early sixth century, there was reportedly a steady flow of merchants from the remote west arriving in the Northern Wei dynasty capital at Luoyang, in north-central China. Buddhism was then introduced to Paekche by a Central Asian monk, Malananda, coming from Southern dynasty China in 384.