Imperial China: Photographs 1850-1912
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
At the twilight of a dynasty, history was captured not in ink but through a lens — Imperial China: Photographs 1850-1912 presents a breathtaking visual record of the Qing Empire during its final, turbulent decades, assembling rare photographs that document the grandeur, ceremony, and everyday life of a civilization on the cusp of irreversible transformation. From the elaborate court costumes of Manchu nobles to the bustling streets of treaty-port cities, this landmark collection chronicles the full spectrum of Chinese society — emperors, merchants, soldiers, and commoners alike — with an intimacy that no painted scroll could achieve. The foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Harrison Salisbury frames these images within the sweeping arc of modern history, while the authoritative texts by Clark Worswick and the celebrated historian Jonathan Spence illuminate the political and cultural forces reshaping the empire. Together, Worswick and Spence construct a deeply layered narrative in which photography itself becomes a historical instrument, one that both preserved and, paradoxically, hastened the West's fascination with — and encroachment upon — the Middle Kingdom. The volume stands as a definitive work at the intersection of art history, sinology, and documentary photography, drawing the reader into a world of dragon thrones and opium wars, of bound feet and Boxer uprisings, of a civilization stubbornly magnificent even as modernity closed in. One is left to wonder: what did those photographed subjects make of the strange black boxes trained upon them, and did they sense they were witnessing the end of an age?
Author: Clark Worswick And Jonathan Spence
Format: Hardback
Genre: Photography
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
At the twilight of a dynasty, history was captured not in ink but through a lens — Imperial China: Photographs 1850-1912 presents a breathtaking visual record of the Qing Empire during its final, turbulent decades, assembling rare photographs that document the grandeur, ceremony, and everyday life of a civilization on the cusp of irreversible transformation. From the elaborate court costumes of Manchu nobles to the bustling streets of treaty-port cities, this landmark collection chronicles the full spectrum of Chinese society — emperors, merchants, soldiers, and commoners alike — with an intimacy that no painted scroll could achieve. The foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Harrison Salisbury frames these images within the sweeping arc of modern history, while the authoritative texts by Clark Worswick and the celebrated historian Jonathan Spence illuminate the political and cultural forces reshaping the empire. Together, Worswick and Spence construct a deeply layered narrative in which photography itself becomes a historical instrument, one that both preserved and, paradoxically, hastened the West's fascination with — and encroachment upon — the Middle Kingdom. The volume stands as a definitive work at the intersection of art history, sinology, and documentary photography, drawing the reader into a world of dragon thrones and opium wars, of bound feet and Boxer uprisings, of a civilization stubbornly magnificent even as modernity closed in. One is left to wonder: what did those photographed subjects make of the strange black boxes trained upon them, and did they sense they were witnessing the end of an age?