China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty

Fascinating portrait of 7-10th century China.

Chinese history is measured in millennia, not centuries. Much of that history is lost through time, but the Tang Dynasty is well documented. Charles Benn's book is comprehensive in scope and filled with incredible detail on all aspects of life during the Tang. Since Chinese culture changed very slowly over the centuries, much of the information can be applied to other dynasties in the so called middle ages of China, such as the Liao and the Song. This book offers a detailed description of Chinese culture from that age, and brings a clear vision to the workings of all aspects of that time period. Most other books offer insights into some aspects , but Mr Benn has assembled a truly great place to start in understanding Chinese culture from that time.

The subtitle of Benn's book is "everyday life in the Tang dynasty" and appropriately so. The first chapter provides a brief history of the T'ang, from its founding in 618 to its replacement by the Sui in 881. The overview is brief, but it provides context for the details that follow.It was precisely these details that I found most intriguing, as Benn provides an ethnography of all aspects of life in medieval China from all strata of society. This includes broader themes such as urban versus rural life and the home versus public life, but also hygine, entertainment, the life cycle and beliefs and rituals around death and mourning. In many respects it read as more of an anthropological study than a history.The detail and depth that Benn delves into is really first-rate. However, I have to give it four stars because of the lack of scholarly notation and the relative age of the secondary sources used - most of them predate the 1990s. Further on this point, while the anecdotes Benn uses to show what daily life in medieval China are excellent, I had hoped for some reference to the sources from where these stories originate.If you are not looking for a scholarly treatment of the subject, this is an excellent resource. Recommended.

Other than a few odd choices of words (the Church to refer to Buddhist clergy and ale to rice wine) I enjoyed this informative book.

This superb book is perhaps somewhat hit-or-miss in some areas when compared to Carcopino's Everyday Life in Ancient Rome, but it still gives a wonderful, detailed picture of the brilliant T'ang dynasty. For those who want to learn in detail about life in T'ang China, this is an excellent book.

I really wanted to like this book by Charles Benn, as I am exceedingly interested in the topic. Yet, Benn's didactic writing style left me entirely unimpressed. Sure, there were tidbits of information here and there, but overall, there are a lot of words and very little substance. His tangents were completely incongruous with the subject and his vocabulary sounded as if the text were written in the 1950's. I just wanted to give some readers a heads up if they are thinking of purchasing this text: there are moments of interest, but a lot of - yawn - uninteresting verbiage overall.

Excellent

A must read for any Sinophile. I am a little surprised by the reviews as I couldn't put this book down. Dr. Charles Benn wrote an incredibly detailed account of life in the Tang Dynasty. Recently I had read Jacques Gernet "Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion" and I found that equally fascinating.This book discusses all facets of life from religion, the culinary arts, medicine, social norms, taxes, society, 2politics, military, rites/rituals, family life, law, beliefs and the economy. My wife is Chinese and she spends a decent amount of time studying Chinese history. There were details in this book that I shared with her that she didn't even know about.A couple of excerpts that I found fascinating:"The wealth accumulated by the church through donations, rents, and industries went first to the maintenance of monasteries and the support of the clergy. However, the normal expenditures of monasteries apparently required only one-fourth to one-third of their income. Some of the surplus went to the construction of new facilities and to the commissioning or purchase of paintings, murals, statues, and bells, as well as to furnish supplies for festivals. However, the monks employed a large portion of it to increase their revenues through commercial transactions. The first of them was pawnbroking, which appeared in Buddhist monasteries in the sixth century. A peasant in need of seed at the beginning of spring would deposit a valuable object, such as an iron cauldron, with the monastery as security for a loan of grain. If he failed to redeem the property by returning the seed after the autumn harvest, he agreed to forfeit all of his movable property The monks charged him no interest for the transaction. If, however, the person was of a higher station and the transaction involved money, such as a woman who pawned her comb for 500 coppers, he or she had to return the principal with interest to redeem the pledge. Buddhist pawnshops did a thriving business. One monk in the early ninth century set up establishments that lent out more than 1 billion coppers a year against security. This astonished the emperor, who issued a decree in 817 that prohibited the nobility, officials, Taoist priests, and Buddhist monks for holding more than 5 million cash at a given time."One more that gave me a chuckle :-)"A man had to be careful about where he installed his privy. There was a haunted house in Changan during the Sui dynasty. All of the previous occupants had died there. A man named Wan, who did not believe in ghosts, took over the place without a second thought. One night a spirit dressed in very fine robes appeared to him. Wan asked the spirit why he had come. The specter replied that he had been a general centuries before, and that his grave lay near the home's privy. He had always suffered from the foul odor there, so he asked Wan to do him a favor of having his remains removed to another place. The ghost promised to reward him liberally for his efforts. Wan agreed, and asked the spirit why it had slain the previous occupants of the dwelling. The specter replied that they died of fright; he had killed no one. Wan dug up the coffin and interred it elsewhere. The following night the specter appeared again, predicted that Wan would become a general, and vowed to provide assistance on all of his campaigns. As predicted, Wan became a commander of Sui forces, and every time he went into battle, he sensed the presence of spirit warriors aiding him. He always won his battles"If you found those short passages entertaining, then you'll love the book.