Yuan Dynasty

Introduction

The Yuan dynasty sits awkwardly in Eurasian history. The dynastic name, Yuan, is Chinese, as is the practice of naming dynastic houses not by the leading family’s surname but by the place where the regime began or, as was the case with the Yuan, a term that carried auspicious meaning. In the case of East Asia, dynasty also calls to mind a package of political institutions and conventions (including a dominant role for the emperor; a highly articulated bureaucracy; written law codes regulating political, commercial, and family life; a court with extensive and minutely described rituals; a capital with a grand palace) and a well-developed political philosophy that explained the place of the Son of Heaven in the cosmos, and the interaction among the realms of man, nature, social life, and much more. Thus, one approach to the Yuan period has been to view it in the longer span of Chinese history. Yet, the rulers of the Yuan dynasty were Mongol conquerors whose family, the Chinggisids (descendants of Chinggis khan), subjugated much of Eurasia. Although Mongols had conquered much of northern China in the mid-13th century, the Yuan dynasty was not established until 1271. It is generally used to describe China under Mongol rule, but equating the Yuan dynasty with China is both factually inaccurate and highly misleading because Mongolian (or, more broadly, steppe) traditions of rulership and governance differed importantly from those of earlier and later Chinese dynasties. Much recent Japanese scholarship thus uses the term “Great Yuan ulus” (Mongolian for nation) rather than dynasty to highlight such differences.

Introductory Works

Smith and Von Glahn 2003 considers the continuities of the Yuan period with the rest of Chinese history, with particular attention paid to the preceding Song period. Kim Ho-dong (Kim 2006, Kim 2009) has argued that the Great Yuan (da yuan 大元) actually referred to the entire Mongolian Empire but has mistakenly come to be understood as the territory governed by Khubilai and his descendants.

Kim Ho-dong 金浩東. “Mong’gol che’guk kwa Tae Wŏn” (몽골帝國과 大元). Yŏksa hakpo 歴史學報 192 (2006): 221–253.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Using Chinese, Persian, and European sources, Kim reexamines the now-common notion of four independent khanates and argues that contemporaries understood Great Yuan to mean the entire Mongol Empire, not just China and its environs.
Find this resource:
Kim, Ho-dong 金浩東. “The Unity of the Mongol Empire and Continental Exchanges over Eurasia.” Journal of Central Eurasian Studies 1 (2009): 15–42.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Kim reviews the notion of the Pax Mongolica and its implications for diplomatic and commercial travel across Mongolian territories during the 13th and 14th centuries. He also briefly articulates his argument that Great Yuan referred to the empire.
Find this resource:
Smith, Paul J., and Richard Von Glahn, eds. The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History. Harvard East Asian Monograph 221. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The Yuan has often fallen between the cracks of two far-better-studied periods (the Tang-Song and the Ming-Qing, c. 7th to 13th centuries and 1550–1900, respectively). This important collection of eleven essays both explores the Yuan’s links to these earlier and later periods and, more provocatively, argues that the early 12th to early 15th centuries constituted a distinct historical epoch, the “Song-Yuan-Ming transition.”
Find this resource:
General Overviews

Several overviews of the Yuan dynasty are available. Morgan 2007 offers a succinct treatment of the Yuan in the context of the Mongol Empire. Han 1986 and Zhou and Gu 1993 provide wide-ranching Chinese overviews of the Yuan dynasty, with some attention to its place in the Mongol Empire. Chen 2009 is intended for an educated general audience and was written by a leading specialist of the Yuan.

Chen Gaohua 陳高華. Chen Gaohua shuo Yuan chao (陳高華說元朝). Dajia Shuo Lishi. Shanghai: Shanghai kexue jishu wenxian chubanshe, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Chen is a leading historian of the Yuan, who has written on everything from art, social customs, and religion to tax categories, registration, and international relations of the Yuan. This volume provides concise coverage of all these topics and far more.
Find this resource:
Han Rulin 韓儒林, comp. Yuanchaoshi (元朝史). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1986.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
For many years the standard work on the Yuan dynasty, by a leading Chinese expert on the Mongol Empire. Although slightly dated, it is still useful for its detailed treatment of political, economic, social, and military history of the period.
Find this resource:
Morgan, David O. The Mongols. 2d ed. Peoples of Europe. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An accessible and well-written introduction to the Mongol Empire, written by a Persian specialist who in the first edition (originally published in 1986) synthesized the best Western-language scholarship up to the mid-1980s. This second edition of the book includes a bibliographic supplement of works published up to the mid-1990s.
Find this resource:
Zhou Liangxia 周良霄 and Gu Juying 顧菊英. Yuanshi (元史). Shanghai: Shanghai chubanshe, 1993.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A readable history of the Yuan that supplements but does not surpass Han 1986.
Find this resource:
Guides to Sources

Both Chen and Ding 1997 and Liu 2006 offer detailed, informed bibliographic reviews of Chinese studies of the Mongol Empire, with a particular focus on the Yuan dynasty. Yanigida 1983 and Morita 2006 review important primary sources and secondary Japanese scholarship.

Chen Dezhi 陳得芝 and Ding Guofan 丁國範, eds. Zhongguo tongshi (中國通史). Vol. 13, Yuan shiqi (元時期). Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1997.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The first six chapters of this volume (pp. 17–241) offer a detailed treatment of Yuan sources and historiography since the 14th century. It focuses on Chinese scholarship but also includes discussion of the key works from Japan, Europe, and the United States.
Find this resource:
Liu Xiao 劉曉. Yuanshi yanjiu (元史研究). Fuzhou, China: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This is a detailed historiographical review of the last century of Chinese language scholarship on Yuan history. It is organized into politics, institutions, the economy, society, culture, peoples and the border, foreign relations, and sources.
Find this resource:
Morita Kenji 森田憲司. “Kin-Gen” (金元). In Chūgoku rekishi kenkyū nyūmon (中国歴史研究入門). Edited by Tonami Mamoru 礪波護, Kishimoto Mio 岸本美緒, and Sugiyama Masaaki 杉山正明. Nagoya, Japan: Nagoya daigaku shuppankai, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This extremely useful historiographical review includes citations to relevant indexes, bibliographies, debates, and primary sources (complete with recommendations for best editions). It is the handiest point of departure for anyone interested in Japanese scholarship since the early 1990s on the Yuan.
Find this resource:
Yanigida Setsuko 柳田節子. “Gen” (宋•元時代). In Chūgokushi kenkyū nyūmon (中国史研究入門). Vol. 1. Edited by Yamane Yukio 山根幸夫. Tokyo: Yamagawa shuppankai, 1983.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Although slightly dated, this introduction to the basic primary sources and historiographical debates is still useful, particularly its coverage of Japanese scholarship through the 1970s.
Find this resource:
Primary Sources

With the exception of literature and drama, few Yuan-period writings have been translated into English. Two annotated translations from the Official History of the Yuan Dynasty are available but must be used with some caution (Schurmann 1956, Hsiao 1978). Compiled by the Ming court, which had just recently seized power after a decade of bloody fighting, the Official History of the Yuan Dynasty is an essential source of information on the Yuan, but its commission and writing were ultimately inseparable from the Ming’s political needs and contemporary historians’ understanding of the rise and fall of dynasties and the transmission of the Mandate of Heaven. Li 1998–2002 is the largest single collection of Yuan-period writings (but it does not include poetry).

Hsiao, Ch’i-ch’ing. The Military Establishment of the Yüan Dynasty. Harvard East Asian Monograph 77. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A painstaking translation of two chapters from the 14th-century Official History of the Yuan Dynasty that contains a wealth of information, some easily found in the introduction and some buried in the detailed annotations that draw upon relevant secondary scholarship both in Western and East Asian languages and the author’s formidable command of Yuan-period primary sources. The index is detailed and accurate.
Find this resource:
Li Xiusheng 李修生, comp. Quan Yuan wen (全元文). Vols. 1–25. Nanjing, China: Jiangsu chuji chubanshe, 1998–2002.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Vols. 26–61 published in 2004–2005 (Nanjing, China: Fenghuang chubanshe). This collection includes writers active from the Jin-Yuan transition to the Yuan-Ming transition. Typeset with brief introductions to each author, the collection uses a variety of editions. Volume 61 is an index to the entire collection, arranged by author and essay title.
Find this resource:
Schurmann, Herbert Franz. Economic Structure of the Yüan Dynasty: Translation of Chapters 93 and 94 of the Yüan shih. Harvard-Yenching Institute Studies 16. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An annotated translation of the “Treatise on Fiscal Administration” in the Official History of the Yuan Dynasty, which covered such topics as land surveys, agriculture and sericulture, land taxes, household taxes, maritime transportation and foreign trade, paper-currency system, state monopolies in salt and tea, and salaries and annual stipends to the imperial family and other aristocrats.
Find this resource:
Reference Works

Three important reference works for the Yuan period are Rachewiltz 1993, Farquhar 1990, and Franke and Twitchett 1994.

Farquhar, David M. The Government of China under Mongolian Rule: A Reference Guide. Münchener Ostasiatische Studien 53. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1990.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Farquhar offers translations of Chinese and Mongolian terms for governmental offices and provides brief explanations of their evolution and functions. The book also includes an interpretive essay on Mongolian government in China.
Find this resource:
Franke, Herbert, and Denis C. Twitchett, eds. The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This volume contains chapters on the Khitan Liao, the Tangut Xi Xia, and the Jurchen Jin polities, all of which either provided institutional models and personnel or were contemporary rivals of the Mongols. Written by leading experts, these chapters offer concise political narratives and include extensive bibliographies of primary documents, as well as secondary scholarship in Asian and European languages.
Find this resource:
Rachewiltz, Igor de, ed. In the Service of the Khan: Eminent Personalities of the Early Mongol-Yüan Period (1200–1300). Asiatische Forschungen 121. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1993.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This thick volume provides detailed biographies of more than a dozen key Mongolian, Khitan, Muslim, and Chinese figures from the 13th century, written by leading authorities. These biographical studies are often the best treatment available in English and push far beyond standard interpretations of individual figures and more-general political dynamics.
Find this resource:
Journals

Several specialized journals are devoted to the history of the Yuan and related topics, including Journal of Song-Yuan Studies, Yuanshi luncong, and Yuanshi ji beifang minzushi yanjiu jikan.

Journal of Song-Yuan Studies.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A specialized English-language journal devoted to academic scholarship on the Song and Yuan periods. It includes both research essays and book reviews.
Find this resource:
Yuanshi ji beifang minzushi yanjiu jikan 元史及北方民族史研究集刊.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A specialized Chinese-language journal devoted to academic scholarship on the Yuan period and, more broadly, “peoples of the north” from periods beyond the Yuan. It includes both research essays and occasional book reviews.
Find this resource:
Yuanshi luncong 元史論叢.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A specialized Chinese-language journal devoted to academic scholarship on the Yuan period. It includes both research essays and occasional book reviews.
Find this resource:
Political History

The Mongol conquest of northern China was long, violent, and destructive. Martin 1981 (originally published in 1950) provides a detailed narrative of the early military campaigns against the Jurchen Jin dynasty. Allsen 1994 gives a good sense of the political and logistical considerations behind early Mongolian rule in northern China. The most closely studied period of the Yuan is the reign of Khubilai. Rossabi 1994 and Mote 1999 offer useful reviews of the period. Rossabi 1988 remains the authoritative biography of Khubilai; it also provides a well-balanced consideration of the 13th century and much useful discussion of contemporaneous Chinese and Persian depictions of Khubilai. Far less explored is the middle period of the Yuan dynasty, c. 1294–1332, which makes Hsiao 1994 especially welcomed. Focusing on court politics, Hsiao highlights the increasing instability and violence among ruling Mongol elites of the Yuan; reigns became short and scheming was chronic. Such infighting resulted in part from the Mongols’ tradition of bloody tanistry, which allowed for leading Chinggisid nobles to contend for the throne and was presumed to result in the triumph of the strongest and thus fittest ruler (Fletcher 1986). The experience of empire brought change to the administrative structure and ideological underpinnings of the Mongol polity. Dardess 1972–1973 examines the emergence of what the author calls a “unitary state” by 1300, as the Yuan central government extended bureaucratic control into the steppe, thus forming a contiguous geographical unit rather than the noncontiguous series of only lightly administered territories that had characterized the earlier Mongol Empire.

Allsen, Thomas. “The Rise of the Mongolian Empire and Mongolian Rule in North China.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368. Edited by Herbert Franke and Denis C. Twitchett, 321–413. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Drawing on his previous work on the changing nature of Mongolian administration and logistics, Allsen examines the rise of Chinggis khan, the fighting in eastern Eurasia, and the vagaries of early Mongol rule in north China, with particular attention to tax collection, labor mobilization, and interaction with local Chinese elites.
Find this resource:
Dardess, John W. “From Mongol Empire to Yüan Dynasty: Changing Forms of Imperial Rule in Mongolia and Central Asia.” Monumenta Serica 30 (1972–1973): 117–165.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Dardess traces the expansion of the Yuan state, largely for military considerations, into the former Tangut Empire, Mongolia, the Uighur kingdom, and the upper Yenisei region. Such far-flung expansions proved to be a huge financial burden, and by 1300 the Yuan state had yielded control of all but Mongolia. The result was a contiguous unitary state that linked China proper and Mongolia. Available online by subscription.
Find this resource:
Fletcher, Joseph. “The Mongols: Ecological and Social Perspectives.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46.1 (1986): 11–50.
DOI: 10.2307/2719074Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A classic essay by a pioneering scholar that analyzes Mongolian political dynamics in terms of social organization and the steppe environment. Available online by subscription.
Find this resource:
Hsiao, Ch’i-ch’ing. “Mid-Yüan Politics.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368. Edited by Herbert Franke and Denis C. Twitchett, 490–560. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The most detailed and insightful English-language treatment of court politics of the mid-Ming. Hsiao highlights the tensions among the Mongol ruling elite and the increasingly difficult financial straits of the dynasty.
Find this resource:
Martin, Henry Desmond. The Rise of Chingis Khan and His Conquest of North China. Edited by Eleanor Lattimore. New York: Octagon, 1981.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Originally published in 1950 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press). Dated but still useful for those without direct access to works in East Asian languages, this detailed narrative of the Mongol conquest emphasizes battles.
Find this resource:
Mote, Frederick W. Imperial China, 900–1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A readable and insightful synthesis of a lifetime of teaching and research by a leading scholar. Chapters 17–20 cover the rise of Chinggis, the growth of empire, Khubilai’s reign, and overall Mongol impact on China.
Find this resource:
Rossabi, Morris. Khubilai Khan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This is the first and only English-language biography of Khubilai, the founder of the Yuan dynasty. Rossabi effectively challenges contemporaneous Chinese accounts that give pride of place to Chinese advisors at the expense of Mongols, Persians, and other non-Chinese actors.
Find this resource:
Rossabi, Morris. “The Reign of Khubilai Khan.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368. Edited by Herbert Franke and Denis C. Twitchett, 414–489. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This account focuses on court politics and dynastic policies and echoes Rossabi’s bleak view of Khubilai’s last years as ruler.
Find this resource:
Governance

The subjugation of huge swathes of territory and highly diverse populations presented both challenges and opportunities to the Mongols. Drawing on methods of taxation and labor mobilization throughout their subjugated lands, the Mongols developed new ways to extract resources both from pastoral and sedentary populations (Allsen 1986). Although Confucian ideology had an increasing impact on governance, and certain Chinese scholars had an influence on Mongol rulers (Dardess 1973, the highest posts of the Yuan government were often beyond the reach of Chinese men, who instead frequently served in the lower levels of the bureaucracy and sub-bureaucracy. This reduction in their political status stimulated some Chinese thinkers to rethink their notions of government, to study law codes more closely, and to redefine the social significance of clerks (Langlois 1981). At the same time, the Mongols drew on several steppe institutions and customs to govern the Yuan. To foster ties of personal loyalty both among the steppe elites and newly subjugated peoples, the Mongols exploited the khan’s personal guard (keshig), which served simultaneously as a form of hostage taking and a way to grant privileged access to the person of the ruler (Allsen 1986, Atwood 2006). The Mongols also adapted the office of darughachi to civil administration in China (Endicott-West 1989b). Mongolian attitudes toward commerce and their tendency to mix state and family finances contributed to close ties between the Mongol aristocracy and merchant consortiums (Allsen 1989, Endicott-West 1989b). At one time, scholars argued that the Mongols ushered in unprecedented levels of autocratic rule in China (Schurmann 1956); however, more recent studies have highlighted the Mongols’ preference for conciliar decision making and loose bureaucracy (Endicott-West 1989b).

Allsen, Thomas T. “Guard and Government in the Reign of the Grand Qan Möngke, 1251–59.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46.2 (1986): 495–521.
DOI: 10.2307/2719141Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Allsen explores the centrality of the Great Khan’s personal guard to the expanding Mongolian Empire’s system of governance through the example of the powerful leader Möngke. He pays particular attention to the Great Khan’s efforts to balance the need to delegate power and authority with defending his prerogatives. Available online by subscription.
Find this resource:
Allsen, Thomas T. “Mongolian Princes and Their Merchant Partners, 1200–1260.” Asia Major 3d ser. 2.2 (1989): 83–126.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Allsen examines the role of merchants at the Yuan court, the services they rendered to the princes, and their influence on imperial policy, with particular focus on the first half of the 13th century.
Find this resource:
Atwood, Christopher. “Ulus Emirs, Keshig Elders, Signatures, and Marriage Partners: The Evolution of a Classic Mongol Institution.” In Imperial Statecraft: Political Forms and Techniques of Governance in Inner Asia, Sixth–Twentieth Centuries. Edited by David Sneath, 141–173. Studies on East Asia 26. Bellingham: Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Atwood, a leading scholar of the Mongols, traces the evolution of a key element of Mongolian governance and rule, the keshig (the khan’s personal guard), across the empire and over the centuries. He highlights the importance of institutional exchange among the successor states of the Mongols rather than a single institution that survived unchanged from the time of Chinggis.
Find this resource:
Dardess, John W. Conquerors and Confucians: Aspects of Political Change in Late Yüan China. Studies in Oriental Culture 9. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Dardess argues that beginning in the early 14th century, the Mongol court was increasingly isolated from the steppe, and as a result, Mongol elites and their central Asian advisors increasingly underwent a “thorough Confucianization.” Although several scholars have criticized Dardess’s overly broad use of Confucianism and his uncritical reading of Chinese sources, this is the most detailed narrative of late Yuan political history available in English.
Find this resource:
Endicott-West, Elizabeth. “Merchant Associations in Yüan China: The Ortogh.” Asia Major 3d ser. 2 (1989a): 127–154.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Endicott-West examines the etymology of the word ortogh and the development of the merchant associations in China during the 13th and 14th centuries, with particular attention to Chinese views of the merchants. She argues that the post-Khubilai court’s inability to distinguish “a governmental budget and an imperial family budget” contributed to the late Yuan economic collapse.
Find this resource:
Endicott-West, Elizabeth. Mongolian Rule in China: Local Administration in the Yuan Dynasty. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph 29. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Council on East Asian Studies, 1989b.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed study of local administration in China under the Mongols, with particular focus on the evolution of the Mongolian office of darugachi from military-conquest institution to a civilian bureaucratic administration. Endicott-West stresses the relatively decentralized nature of Mongol governance with its strong tradition of conciliar decision making.
Find this resource:
Langlois, John D., Jr. “Political Thought in Chin-hua under Mongol Rule.” In China under Mongol Rule. Edited by John D. Langlois Jr., 137–185. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Langlois explores how the scholars of Jinhua (Chin-hua), Zhejiang, reformulated the role of scholars to combine the moral teachings of Zhu Xi with more-pragmatic qualities more commonly associated with clerks who possessed training in law and bureaucratic procedures.
Find this resource:
Schurmann, Herbert Franz. Economic Structure of the Yüan Dynasty: Translation of Chapters 93 and 94 of the Yüan shih. Harvard-Yenching Institute Studies 16. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Annotated translation of the Treatise on Fiscal Administration in the Official History of the Yuan Dynasty, which covered such topics as land surveys, agriculture and sericulture, land taxes, household taxes, maritime transportation and foreign trade, paper-currency system, state monopolies in salt and tea, and salaries and annual stipends to the imperial family and other aristocrats.
Find this resource:
Foreign Personnel

The Mongols incorporated both local Chinese populations and significant numbers of Persians, Tibetans, Kipchaks, Uyghurs, and other central Asian groups to staff the Yuan administration (Rossabi 1981, Rachewiltz 1983, Brose 2005, Brose 2007, Franke 1981). The most famous (at least in Europe) of the foreign personnel, Marco Polo, is covered separately under Ties between Europe and China.

Brose, Michael C. “Uyghur Technologists of Writing and Literacy in Mongol China.” T’oung-pao 2d ser. 91.4–5 (2005): 396–435.
DOI: 10.1163/156853205774910106Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Brose examines how the Mongols’ keen interest in literacy as a tool of empire shaped the fortunes of the Uyghurs, a Turkic group whose skills in administration brought them to Mongol attention, which in turn contributed to a Eurasia-wide Uyghur diaspora. Available online by subscription.
Find this resource:
Brose, Michael C. Subjects and Masters: Uyghurs in the Mongol Empire. Studies on East Asia 28. Bellingham: Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Brose traces the ways that several influential Uyghur families adapted to the rise of the Mongol Empire, noting their status both as subjects of the Mongols and masters of the Chinese. He shows that Uyghurs exploited their mastery of Chinese culture as a form of political and cultural capital that helped them advance bureaucratic careers and social status in the Mongol Empire.
Find this resource:
Franke, Herbert. “Tibetans in Yuan China.” In China under Mongol Rule. Edited by John D. Langlois Jr., 296–328. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Franke reviews the growing prominence of Tibetan clerics in Yuan China, contrasting the Mongols’ appreciation of the Tibetans’ contribution to the empire’s governance and political ideology with the largely hostile attitude of Chinese observers.
Find this resource:
Rachewiltz, Igor de. “Turks in China under the Mongols: A Preliminary Investigation of Turco-Mongol Relations in the 13th and 14th Centuries.” In China among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th–14th Centuries. Edited by Morris Rossabi, 281–310. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The author argues that in cultural and political terms, the Turks were the most influential group of foreigner settlers within the Mongol Empire. He treats such Turkic groups as Uyghurs, Kharlukhs, Khanglis, Kipchaks, Öngüts, Kereyids, and Naimans, providing brief background on their origins, their incorporation into the empire, and the roles they played under the Mongols from 1200 to 1368.
Find this resource:
Rossabi, Morris. “The Muslims in the Early Yüan Dynasty.” In China under Mongol Rule. Edited by John D. Langlois Jr., 257–295. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Rossabi shows that Mongol rulers employed Muslim personnel in local, regional, and central administrations, often as posts related to finance, taxation, and trade. He argues that the Mongols used such Muslims as scapegoats, diverting Chinese resentment and animosity from themselves. He shows that tensions between Chinese and Muslims were due far more to economic conflict than to religious differences.
Find this resource:
Military

Despite the Mongols’ legendary fighting prowess, English-language scholarship on Yuan campaigns, armies, and military institutions is relatively limited. May 2007 offers the most detailed analysis of the composition, training, and strategies of Mongol armies. Allsen 2002 shows how the Mongols incorporated Chinese, Persian, Georgian, and other subjugated peoples and their military technologies into their armies to overcome the challenges of campaigning outside the steppe. Hsiao 1978 (cited under Primary Sources) provides an overview of Yuan military institutions in the author’s translation of two chapters from the treatise on military affairs from the 14th-century Official History of the Yuan Dynasty. Liu 2005 analyzes early-14th-century military clashes with another Mongol khanate, the Chaghadaid House, in central Asia. Rossabi 1988 (cited under Political History) discusses Khubilai’s wars against Mongol rivals and Chinese rebels, and the abortive campaigns against Java, Vietnam, and Japan. Scholars debate the Mongols’ motives for the campaigns against Japan in 1274 and 1281; Rossabi sees them as an effort by an insecure Khubilai to prove himself as a successful military commander. Others have speculated that he wished to prune the ranks of the surrendered Southern Song army, which otherwise would have been expensive to maintain, would have posed a security risk, and would have offered only limited strength to the Mongol armies. On the basis of a close reading of Japanese primary sources, Conlan 2001 argues that the Mongol invasion forces were far smaller than has been commonly thought. Conlan further maintains that the fierce defense of Japanese warriors, rather than fortuitous typhoon winds (the kamikaze), deserves credit for the Mongols twin defeats. Drawing both on textual and recent underwater archaeological findings, Delgado 2008 offers the most detailed look at the Yuan campaigns against Japan.

Allsen, Thomas T. “The Circulation of Military Technology in the Mongolian Empire.” In Warfare in Inner Asian History (500–1800). Edited by Nicola Di Cosmo, 265–292. Handbuch der Orientalistik 8. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Allsen shows how the Mongols adapted to new military challenges such as massive walled cities and navies, by incorporating and further stimulating the development of such technologies as ballistae, gunpowder, small handheld guns, cannon, shipbuilding, and naval artillery. The key was aggressive incorporation of local technologies and technicians, throughout Eurasia, into all Mongol campaigns.
Find this resource:
Delgado, James P. Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Deftly synthesizing Western historical scholarship and the results of recent underwater archaeology, Delgado tells the story of the abortive Mongol invasions of Japan, from the perspective of maritime history.
Find this resource:
Conlan, Thomas. In Little Need of Divine Intervention: Takezaki Suenaga’s Scrolls of the Mongol Invasions of Japan. Cornell East Asia 113. Ithaca, NY: Cornell, East Asia Program, Cornell University, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The bulk of the book is devoted to the scrolls commissioned by a Japanese warrior to claim rewards from the government for his contributions to Japanese defenses against the Mongols. Conlan’s stimulating essay on the abortive campaigns draws skillfully on recent Japanese scholarship and his own reading of primary documents. He argues that Mongol failure owed much more to the efficacy of the Japanese military than to typhoons.
Find this resource:
Liu, Yingsheng. “War and Peace between the Yuan Dynasty and the Chaghadaid Khanate (1312–1323).” In Mongols, Turks, and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World. Edited by Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran, 339–358. Brill’s Inner Asian Library 11. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Liu looks at shifting political and military relations between the Yuan and Chaghadaid khanates in the much-neglected post-Khubilai period.
Find this resource:
May, Timothy M. The Mongol Art of War: Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Military System. Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
May’s focus is earlier than the Yuan period, but much of the book is directly relevant for understanding the Yuan armies. He synthesizes most of the relevant Western-language scholarship, offers cogent analysis of the changing Mongol military, and provides a wonderful bibliography of primary sources in translation.
Find this resource:
Socioeconomic Developments

Early scholarship highlighted exploitive and disruptive Mongol policies of resource extraction. During the early years of Mongol rule in China, taxes and labor were extracted on the basis of military need and were thus often unpredictable and, from the local population’s perspective, arbitrary. Since the early 1990s, more attention has been lavished on the Mongols’ contribution to international trade, both overland and maritime. Endicott-West 1989b (cited under Governance) and Allsen 1989 examine the links between Mongol elites and international trade consortiums that linked West and East Asia. So 2000 considers maritime trade during the Yuan period, in a wider historical context. Sen 2006a, Sen 2006b, and Sen 2011 focus on trade with South Asia.

Allsen, Thomas T. “Mongolian Princes and Their Merchant Partners.” Asia Major 3d ser. 2.2 (1989): 83–126.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Allsen examines the role of merchants at the Yuan court, the services they rendered to the princes, and their influence on imperial policy, with particular focus on the first half of the 13th century. He also notes the increased tax burden that Mongol rule imposed on local Chinese populations.
Find this resource:
Sen, Tansen. “The Formation of Chinese Maritime Networks to Southern Asia, 1200–1450.” In Special Issue: Maritime Diasporas in the Indian Ocean and East and Southeast Asia (960–1775). Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 49.4 (2006a): 421–453.
DOI: 10.1163/156852006779048372Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Sen argues that during the Song period, private trading and shipping networks developed to link China and southern Asia, while the Yuan court established a government maritime network. The result was that “for the first time in the history of India-China relations, court officials, traders, and ships from China” made repeated trips to coastal India, which stimulated commercial and diplomatic exchanges. Available online by subscription.
Find this resource:
Sen, Tansen. “The Yuan Khanate and India: Cross-Cultural Diplomacy in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.” Asia Major 3d ser. 19.1–2 (2006b): 299–326.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Identifying the 13th and 14th centuries as a watershed in Asian history, when cross-cultural interactions reached unprecedented levels, Sen shows that increased diplomatic missions from the Yuan court to India resulted both from expanded international trade and Khubilai’s desire to extend his military and political influence beyond China.
Find this resource:
Sen, Tansen. “Maritime Interactions between China and India: Coastal India and the Ascendancy of Chinese Maritime Power in the Indian Ocean.” Journal of Central Eurasian Studies 2 (May 2011): 41–82.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Sen argues that the Mongols exploited advances in shipbuilding and navigational technologies and expanding commercial contacts in the Indian Ocean developed during the previous Song dynasty to pursue economic and political interests. The essay situates Yuan-period developments in a longer span, a perspective that illumines both continuity and change under the Mongols.
Find this resource:
So, Billy K. L. Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China: The South Fukien Pattern, 946–1368. Harvard East Asian Monograph 195. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
So examines the changing patterns of agriculture, commerce, and maritime trade in the coastal region of Fujian over nearly four centuries. The book charts the interactions of politics, tax policies, land use, economic integration between coastal and inland areas, and impact of foreign rule in a single province. His treatment of the coastal port of Quanzhou during the Yuan period shows that economic prosperity was real but was not shared by all parties equally.
Find this resource:
Culture

The Yuan period witnessed important developments in several areas. Learning of the Way (Dao xue 道學 or Neo-Confucianism), a movement with social, political, and intellectual dimensions, had begun during the preceding Southern Song dynasty. Mongol rulers patronized a simplified version of its tenets, incorporating it into the curriculum–tested, periodic civil-service examinations. Responding both to obstacles to political advancement under the Mongols and to ideas in Learning of the Way, many members of the Chinese elite devoted much time and energy to local communities through education, local social institutions, and family strategies. Mote 1994 argues that despite their displacement for the higher levels of government, literati families maintained their de facto elite status in society. The author describes new levels of literati interest and engagement in areas such as vernacular fiction, drama, medicine, and law as the result of the diffusion of Chinese elite social roles. Several edited volumes and recent museum catalogues offer detailed analysis of particular facets of a cultural florescence during the Yuan period (Lee and Ho 1968, Watt 2010). Birge 2002 argues that the particular intersection of Learning of the Way and Mongol rule resulted in more-restricted property rights for women and social sanctions against elite women remarrying. Birge 2003 describes these long-term changes as the institutionalization of patrilineality.

Birge, Bettine. Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction in Sung and Yüan China (960–1368). Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature, and Institutions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511511950Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Birge traces changes in women’s property and inheritance rights, arguing that those inclined toward the Learning of the Way viewed women’s control over property and relative economic independence as a threat to family stability and continuity. Their efforts to retool society gained real traction under the Mongols, whose traditions strongly and independently favored the continuance of taxable households.
Find this resource:
Birge, Bettine. “Women and Confucianism from Song to Ming: The Institutionalization of Patrilineality.” In The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History. Edited by Paul J. Smith and Richard Von Glahn, 212–240. Harvard East Asian Monograph 221. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Birge shows how trends limiting women’s property rights, remarriage, and widow autonomy under the Mongols set the stage for the Ming founder to implement a fundamentalist vision of Confucianism and to bolster the power of lineages.
Find this resource:
Lee, Sherman E., and Wai-kam Ho. Chinese Art under the Mongols: The Yüan Dynasty (1279–1368). Cleveland, OH: Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1968.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A path-breaking series of essays arguing that the Yuan period saw important new developments in painting, literature, and theater.
Find this resource:
Mote, Frederick W. “Chinese Society under Mongol Rule, 1215–1368.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368. Edited by Herbert Franke and Denis C. Twitchett, 616–664. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Mote surveys Chinese society and culture under Mongol rule, arguing that although great continuities can be observed with previous periods, the “disruptive change” of Mongol rule catalyzed important new developments. He begins with the important and yet unresolved question of a dramatic reduction of registered Chinese households in the 13th century, before examining the fate of educated elites, interactions with West Asians, trends in drama, and urban history, among other topics.
Find this resource:
Watt, James C. Y. The World of Khubilai: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A handsomely produced museum catalogue, with useful essays ranging from urban life, tombs, religion, painting, and calligraphy to textiles and decorative arts.
Find this resource:
Foreign Relations

During the Yuan period, foreign relations were complicated by the fact that China was one part of the larger Mongolian imperium. Thomas Allsen has explored key mechanisms through which China was connected to other parts of the empire, especially to Persia. He shows that Mongol elites relocated administrative personnel, technicians, religious figures, soldiers, cooks, textile workers, and many others, sometimes as individuals but sometimes as entire communities, throughout Eurasia to serve their needs (Allsen 1997, Allsen 2001). Although overland connections (the Silk Road) have attracted the most attention, maritime ties were also critically important, fostering religious, commercial, and diplomatic connections between China and East, Southeast, and South Asia during this period. Coastal cities such as Quanzhou and Guangzhou were international trading centers that attracted merchants, religious figures, and travelers from across Eurasia (Guy 2001, Guy 2010). The Mongols also actively pursued commercial and diplomatic countries in Asia, dispatching envoys to many areas in Southeast and South Asia (see Sen 2006a, Sen 2006b, and Sen 2011, all cited under Socioeconomic Developments).

Allsen, Thomas T. Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Allsen shows that Mongol political interests and aesthetic preferences deeply shaped the flow of textiles across Eurasia. The Mongols harnessed the textile technologies and craftsmen from Persia, central Asia, and China to produce what they wanted, how they wanted it, and where they wanted it.
Find this resource:
Allsen, Thomas T. Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511497445Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Allsen examines in detail how the economic, military, political, religious, medical, and gastronomic imperatives the Mongols set into motion had an effect on material resources, personnel, technologies, and information throughout Eurasia. He focuses especially on China and Persia as cultural and technological centers of the time.
Find this resource:
Guy, John. “Tamil Merchant Guilds and the Quanzhou Trade.” In The Emporium of the World: Maritime Quanzhou, 1000–1400. Edited by Angela Schottenhammer, 283–308. Sinica Leidensia 49. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Briefly recounts Sino-Indian trade contacts before focusing on evidence (including a Tamil inscription and architectural remains) of a Tamil-speaking community of merchants in Quanzhou during the Yuan period.
Find this resource:
Guy, John. “Quanzhou: Cosmopolitan City of Faiths.” In The World of Khubilai: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty. Edited by James C. Y. Watt, 159–178. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
As “one of the great mercantile port cities of the medieval world,” Quanzhou transshipped commodities from Southeast Asia both to major Chinese urban centers to the north and to neighboring countries such as Korea and Japan. Using documentary sources and material artifacts, Guy explores the place of Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Manichaeism, and Christianity in Yuan-period Quanzhou.
Find this resource:
Ties between Europe and China

Much attention has been focused on the overland connections between China and western Europe (Rachewiltz 1971, Dawson 1966, Jackson 2005), with pride of place often given to Marco Polo (Pelliot 1959–1973, Polo 1958, Rachewiltz 1997).

Dawson, Christopher, ed. Mission to Asia: Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Harper Torchbooks. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Translations of key missionary accounts of the Mongols, including John of Piano Carpini’s History of the Mongols, the Journey of William of Rubruck, and letters of John of Monte Corvino, as well as several other documents. The letters of John of Monte Corvino shed light on early missionary activities in China. Republished in 1980 (London: Sheed & Ward).
Find this resource:
Jackson, Peter. The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410. Medieval World. Harlow, UK, and New York: Pearson Longman, 2005.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A noted authority in the field, Jackson offers a comprehensive look at the extent and nature of Mongol interactions with western Europe and West Asia. He also briefly treats missionaries and adventurers (such as the Polos) in China and provides a useful bibliography.
Find this resource:
Pelliot, Paul. Notes on Marco Polo. 3 vols. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1959–1973.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Pelliot brings his extraordinary linguistic skills to bear on Marco Polo’s account of his trip to China. Drawing on Chinese, Turkic, Persian, Mongolian, and European languages, Pelliot sheds light on many terms, places, individuals, and practices noted in Marco Polo’s account.
Find this resource:
Polo, Marco. The Travels of Marco Polo. Translated and with an introduction by Ronald E. Latham. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1958.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An accessible and easily available translation that includes limited but useful annotation.
Find this resource:
Rachewiltz, Igor de. Papal Envoys to the Great Khans. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1971.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Meant for a general, educated audience, this book narrates the story of papal envoys to the Mongol Great Khans during the 13th and 14th centuries. It includes 14th-century missions to the Yuan rulers.
Find this resource:
Rachewiltz, Igor de. “Marco Polo Went to China.” Zentralasiatische Studien 27 (1997): 34–92.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A major scholar with command of Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese, Russian, and most European sources demonstrates that, contrary to what skeptics might say, Polo in fact did go to China.
Find this resource:
The Late Yuan

The last tumultuous decades of the dynasty did much to determine the political, social, intellectual, and military landscape of the post-Mongol era in Eurasia. Dardess 1973 and Dardess 1994 provide clear narratives of the major political developments of the period, with particular attention to the Yuan court’s efforts to meet the challenges of climate fluctuations, epidemic disease, drought, floods, famines, court intrigue, and armed insurrection. Robinson 2009 covers the same time period but focuses on how rebellion influenced the interlocking political, military, social, and economic networks throughout Northeast Asia that were developed under the Mongols.

Dardess, John W. Conquerors and Confucians: Aspects of Political Change in Late Yüan China. Studies in Oriental Culture 9. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Dardess argues that beginning in the early 14th century, the Mongol court was increasingly isolated from the steppe, and as a result, Mongol elites and their central Asian advisors increasingly underwent a “thorough Confucianization.” He chronicles the Yuan government’s experiments with devolving resources and authority to regional authorities, and later efforts to direct the dynastic restoration from the center.
Find this resource:
Dardess, John W. “Shun-ti and the End of Yüan Rule in China.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368. Edited by Herbert Franke and Denis C. Twitchett, 561–586. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This political narrative examines the rise and fall of the last Mongol to rule China, Toghan-Temür (or the Shundi Emperor, as he is more commonly known). Dardess notes the Mongols can be criticized on many fronts but that the mid-14th century was “calamitous” across much of the globe and that perhaps no government could have survived such tests.
Find this resource:
Robinson, David M. Empire’s Twilight: Northeast Asia under the Mongols. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph 68. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Drawing on Chinese and Korean primary materials, Robinson traces the impact of spreading rebellion on the political, military, social, economic, and social connections that linked North China, Liaodong (southern Manchuria), and the Korean kingdom of Koryŏ. He argues that personal and family allegiances often trumped those of “nation.”
Find this resource:
The Yuan-Ming Transition

Scholars have offered a variety of explanations for how best to understand the late Yuan rebellions, some attributing them to class conflict (or “peasant uprisings,” as People’s Republic of China studies termed them) or to nationalistic rejection of oppressive foreign rule. Yet others, such as the authors of Chan 2008 and Dardess 1970, have discussed the ideologies, including millenarian thought, that informed some of the most important rebel groups. Frederick Mote (Mote 1988, Mote 1999) is particularly interested in the opportunities that chaos offered to people of the time, including Mongol military commanders, fishermen, salt smugglers, religious leaders, impoverished farmers, and educated elites. Mote 1962 details the experiences of a gifted young poet during these decades, in one of the very few biographies in English available for this period. Langlois 2009 shows the appeal of a strong, even brutal, ruler in an age of chaos. Dreyer 1988 offers a lucid treatment of the complicated military dynamics of the period. For more, see the Oxford Bibliographies article on the Ming Dynasty.

Chan, Hok-lam 陳學霖. “The ‘Song’ Dynasty Legacy: Symbolism and Legitimation from Han Liner to Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 68.1 (2008): 91–133.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Chan reexamines the ways that Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming dynasty, justified his rule as a warlord, arguing that Manichaeism played no role in contemporaneous political discourse.
Find this resource:
Dardess, John W. “The Transformations of Messianic Revolt and the Founding of the Ming Dynasty.” Journal of Asian Studies 29.3 (1970): 539–558.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Dardess argues that the late Yuan rebellions were driven primarily by “the footloose and the disinherited” rather than by class conflict. He maintains that the rebellions failed to usher in a fundamentally new social order and that instead Confucianism was the only ideology sufficient to establish a new dynasty.
Find this resource:
Dreyer, Edward L. “Military Origins of Ming China.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 7, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 1. Edited by Denis C. Twitchett and Frederick W. Mote, 58–106. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A narrative account of the major campaigns fought by Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming founder. Dreyer was the foremost military historian on the Ming period and provides an intelligent and crisp analysis of a complicated period.
Find this resource:
Langlois, John D., Jr. “Song Lian and Liu Ji in 1358 on the Eve of Joining Zhu Yuanzhang.” Asia Major 3d ser. 22.1 (2009): 131–162.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Through a close reading of two influential writers and officials, Langlois shows how educated men perceived the deteriorating conditions of the late Yuan and came to believe that a strong, even brutal, ruler was needed to restore order to China.
Find this resource:
Mote, Frederick W. The Poet Kao Ch’i, 1336–1374. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Integrating historical writings and poetry, Mote analyzes a young poet’s (Gao Qi [Kao Ch’i]) response to the uncertainty and violence of his day. Although Mote’s handling of Mongol rule is not persuasive, he does succeed very well in conveying the sensibilities of an elite male in a chaotic time.
Find this resource:
Mote, Frederick W. “The Rise of the Ming Dynasty, 1330–1367.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 7, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 1. Edited by Denis C. Twitchett and Frederick W. Mote, 11–57. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Using a series of minibiographies, Mote examines the impact of widespread violence and uncertainty on Chinese society.
Find this resource:
Mote, Frederick W. Imperial China, 900–1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A readable and insightful synthesis of a lifetime of teaching and research. Chapters 21–22 cover the chaos of the mid-14th century, new competitors for power, and the rise of Zhu Yuanzhang. Mote’s bibliography is also highly useful.
Find this resource:
back to top