登入選單

返回Google圖書搜尋

The Forbidden City

Frances Wood

出版	British Museum Press, 2005
主題	History / Asia / ChinaSocial Science / Archaeology
ISBN	07141278929780714127897
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=JpSfAAAAMAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋

The Forbidden City in the middle of Beijing (Peking) has been the hub of imperial China since the 15th century. A city within a city, its high red walls enclosed the centre of government, the imperial palace, huge lakes dotted with islands and pleasure-boats, workshops producing clothing, furniture and fittings and luxury items for the court and a zoo. For hundreds of years, eunuchs served their imperial masters, taking control of the flow of administrative documents and all the daily needs of the emperors and palace women. This lively introduction vividly evokes the colourful characters and strictly prescribed rituals that went on behind the city's closed walls. In the 16th and 17th centuries, a tiny number of foreign envoys, from the Persian Gulf and from Holland, described the discomforts of waiting for hours in the freezing cold to catch a glimpse of the Emperor in his yellow silk sedan chair, and it was not until the very end of the 19th century that ordinary westerners managed to penetrate the Forbidden City. This book allows you to do just that, under the guidance of one of its most learned and enthusiastic admirers.