NAMING CONVENTIONS

Places have multiple names. Because this book covers a long time period, many names have changed. For clarity, I use Ming place-names throughout the text, many of which are the same as modern place-names and therefore easily recognizable. In contexts where the contemporary name was different, I indicate it in parentheses the first time it appears. For example, the primary capital of the Northern Song is given as Kaifeng (Bianjing).

People also have multiple names. Throughout the text, I choose the single name that provides the most clarity, even if this comes at the expense of consistency. This means I use temple names for Song rulers, Mongol names for Yuan rulers, and reign period names for Ming rulers. The only exception is Zhu Yuanzhang, whom I call by his personal name to avoid anachronism around the founding of the Ming dynasty. Most non-emperors are called by their personal names, but here, too, there are exceptions: I call Wang Yangming by his better-known courtesy name.

Even plants have multiple names. When naming trees in the body text, I generally provide a common name and the Chinese term but not the binomial nomenclature. In many cases this avoids both anachronism and false precision. For example the “fir” in my title translates a character (shan 杉) that can refer to multiple species. In South China this is often Cunninghamia lanceolata; in Japan, the same character is pronounced sugi and generally refers to Cryptomeria japonica; in either context, shan/sugi historically applied to multiple other species. Further information can be found in the glossary.