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Classical Historiography for Chinese History

Research guide for Chinese Historiography

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  • Allan, Sarah. "Erlitou and the Formation of Chinese Civilization: Toward a New Paradigm." The Journal of Asian StudiesVolume 66 Issue 02 May 2007: 461-496.
  • Boileau, Gilles. "Wu and Shaman." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Vol. 65 No. 2 2002: 350-378.
  • Cheng, Tei K'un. Archaeology in China, Vol. II: Shang China. Cambridge, England: Heffer, 1960.
  • Creel, Herrlee G. The Birth of China. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1937; paperback reprint, Ungar, 1954. Also covers Chou dynasty.
  • Eberhard, Wolfram, "The Formation of Chinese Civilization According to Socio-Anthropological Analysis," Sociologus VII A (1957), 97-112.
  • Ho, P'ing-ti. The Cradle of the East. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
  • Keightley, David, ed. Origins of Chinese Civilization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
  • ---. Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
  • Takashima, K. "Towards a More Rigorous Methodology of Deciphering Oracle-Bone Inscriptions." T'oung Pao Volume 86 Numbers 4-5 2000: 363-399.
  • Lee, Yun Kuen. "Building the Chronology of Early Chinese History." Asian Perspectives Volume 41 Number 1 Spring 2002.
  • Loewe, Michael, & Edward Shaughnessy, eds. The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the origins of civilization to 221 B.C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. This work provides a survey of the cultural history of pre-imperial China. Fourteen of the leading Western specialists, both historians and archeologists, cover the Shang, Western Zhou, Spring and Autumn, Warring States, Neolithic background, language, intellectual history, relations with Central Asia, and debts of both the Qin and Han empires to these earlier time-periods. There are chapters on institutional history, based on both traditional and palaeographic literature, and on material culture, based on the archaeological record.
  • Underhill, Anne P. Craft Production and Social Change in Northern China. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 2002.
  • Stoltman, James B. et al. "Ceramic Production in Shang Societies of Anyang." Asian Perspectives Spring2009 Vol. 48 Issue 1: 182-203,
  • Wang, Tao. "Shang ritual animals: colour and meaning (part 1)." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Volume 70 Issue 02 June 2007: 305-372.
  • ---. "Shang ritual animals: colour and meaning (part 2)." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Volume 70 Issue 03 October 2007: 539-567.