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Perpetual Happiness: Back Cover

Perpetual Happiness
Back Cover
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table of contents
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. List of Maps
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Preface
  8. 1 / A Day in the Life of Yongle’s Court: February 23, 1423
  9. 2 / The Formative Years, 1360–1382
  10. 3 / The Years of Waiting, 1382–1398
  11. 4 / The Years of Successional Struggle, 1398–1402
  12. 5 / The Years of Reconstruction: Government and Politics, 1402–1420
  13. 6 / The Years of Rehabilitation: Society and Economy, 1402–1421
  14. 7 / The Emperor of Culture
  15. 8 / Yongle and the Mongols
  16. 9 / The Price of Glory
  17. 10 / Epilogue
  18. Appendix: The Children of Emperor Hongwu
  19. Illustrations
  20. Notes
  21. Glossary of Chinese Characters
  22. Bibliography
  23. Index

The reign of Emperor Yongle, or “Perpetual Happiness,” was one of the most dramatic and significant in Chinese history. It began with civil war and a bloody coup, saw the construction of the Forbidden City, the completion of the Grand Canal, consolidation of the imperial bureaucracy, and expansion of China’s territory into Mongolia, Manchuria, and Vietnam. Beginning with an hour-by-hour account of one day in Yongle’s court, Shih-shan Henry Tsai presents the multiple dimensions of the life of Yongle (Zhu Di, 1360-1424) in fascinating detail. Tsai examines the role of birth, education, and tradition in molding the emperor’s personality and values, and paints a rich portrait of a man characterized by stark contrasts. Synthesizing primary and secondary source materials, he has crafted a colorful biography of the most renowned of the Ming emperors.

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