Herbert Franke (1) (1914–2011)

A collection three short pieces, which don't have anything particular to do with one another beyond all dealing with medieval Chinese military history, the two first in German with brief English summaries, the third in English:

Das Abenteuerliche Leben des Ma K'uo ("The Adventurous Life of Ma Kuo"), a biography of a certain Ma Kuo, who served the Song dynasty as a diplomat and military commander in the 1120s and '30s, during the confrontation with the rising Jin dynasty of the Jurchens. It's show more mostly based on excerpts from Ma's autobiography which were perserved in Song historical works (the complete version having been lost).

Die Belagerung von Shao-hsing ("The Siege of Shaoxing"), an annotated translation of a contemporary account of the titular siege in 1359, when the city was successfully defended by troops nominally loyal to the crumbling Yuan dynasty against those of the rising Ming.

The Military System of the Chin Dynasty, a text originally intended as the military chapter of a book about the Jin (or Chin, in the obsolescent Wade-Giles transcription Franke employs) dynasty, which was never finished as a whole.

I found all three well worth reading; the introduction, where Franke expounds a bit on his personal views on military history was also nice. show less

An excellent account of the conquest dynasties of the 10th to 14th centuries; Liao, Xi Xia, Jin, and Yuan.

Drie delen bevatten 406 biografieën over politici, schrijvers en andere belangrijke personen en één deel bevat 34 biografieën over schilders. Het bevat geen indexen, waardoor het werk zeer moeilijk is te gebruiken. De biografieën zijn alfabetisch gerangschikt, zeer variërend in lengte en kwaliteit, en geschreven in Engels, Duits en Frans. Bovendien zijn de talrijke sinds 1968 verschenen indexen op biografisch materiaal uit de Song niet in dit biografisch woordenboek verwerkt. Alleen de show more in Japan uitgegeven index is in een aantal biografieën verwerkt.
Dit betekent dat men hiernaast zelfs over de in dit werk opgenomen personen altijd de latere verschenen indexen moet raadplegen.
Verder is dit werk bruikbaar als bibliografische gids. [BtH] show less

香港大學歷史系