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A richly textured portrait in codex of the easternmost part of this world. . . . Superbly illustrated not only for the number and quality of the images but also for the inclusion of rarely-seen joys. . . . The ceramic enthusiast will be rewarded for paging through this superb book. . . . The integrated approach to Yuan culture, across media and disciplinary boundaries, is this work's greatest contribution, making it an exploration in fascinating detail and inspiring breadth of the complex and layered realities of Yuan society. --George Manginis Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter One of the first reliable social histories of Yuan dynasty art and a useful contribution to Chinese art history. --Morris Rossabi, adjunct professor of Chinese and Inner Asian history, Columbia University This book takes on one of the most fascinating of China's dynasties, the Mongol Yuan, presenting an overarching study of its cultural complexity, illuminated by the visual arts. McCausland uses the capital's cityscape, paintings, and objects as entries into seven larger themes that range from the nature of the Mongol urbanism to the global branding of the Mongols through the widespread export of blue-and-white porcelain. McCausland is a nimble writer and he has crafted a much more granular and balanced view of this accomplished and flawed dynasty than anything so far published in English. . . . A must-read. --Patricia Berger, professor of Chinese art, University of California, Berkeley Through an interweaving of architecture, tomb robbing, painting, natural disasters, examinations, ceramic invention, and a revealing use of encyclopaedic printed works, McCausland reveals the complex culture of the Yuan dynasty. . . . McCausland has a gift for finding illuminating and unusual objects to illustrate his argument. -- Burlington Magazine This is an important contribution to the study of the Mongol-Yuan period in China. Using a wide variety of sources, McCausland has not only written a general study of Yuan dynasty visual and material culture he has also created a fine introduction to the Mongol period in China. He makes clear the polyethnic nature of Yuan society and redresses the view that the Mongols had little impact on Chinese civilization. . . . McCausland has achieved his aim of drawing out the distinctiveness of Yuan culture. The Mongol Century is a fascinating entree into what it meant to live in Yuan-period China. --David Ake Sensabaugh, Ruth and Bruce Dayton Curator of Asian Art, Yale University Art Gallery Richly illustrated, The Mongol Century synthesizes twenty years of transformative research on the art of the Mongol-Yuan dynasty that has articulated its cultural pluralism. Showcasing many new perspectives on the visual and material cultures of this polity, The Mongol Century reinforces the message of seminal work undertaken by many scholars in groundbreaking journal articles, doctoral dissertations, and major museum exhibitions and their accompanying catalogs. -- Journal of Song-Yuan Studies

Winner of the Xingdu Book Award 2024 * Foreign Language Translated Book category * The British art historian Shane McCausland, in the handsomely produced The Mongol Century: Visual Cultures of Yuan China, 1271–1368, is concerned above all with tracing the Mongol influence through surviving artifacts. It is a complex and speculative task. The Mongols’ organizational skills and patronage are easier to identify than what they themselves created. And their impact, at first, was disruptive. The entrenched Chinese bureaucracy was drastically diluted. The rigorous exam system, which created a scholar class in government, abruptly ended. Mongols became the administrative elite. Ultimately, a greater diversity of education, languages, faiths, and ethnicities enriched the brief century of their rule, while the enormous reach of the Mongol domains vitalized a commerce in culture as well as goods . . . He identifies Mongol influence or patronage not only in painting and porcelain, but in an arrestingly wide range of other arts: relief sculpture, calligraphy, tomb murals, woodblock-printed books. The richly varied illustrations include those of printed paper money, gold saddle decorations, and even the official passes carried by yam postal riders, inscribed with death threats against anyone disrupting them . . . [A] careful study * New York Review of Books * Through an interweaving of architecture, tomb robbing, painting, natural disasters, examinations, ceramic invention and a revealing use of encyclopaedic printed works, McCausland reveals the complex culture of the Yuan dynasty . . . McCausland has a gift for finding illuminating and unusual objects to illustrate his argument * <i>Burlington Magazine</i> * a richly textured portrait in codex of the easternmost part of this world . . . superbly illustrated not only for the number and quality of the images but also for the inclusion of rarely-seen joys . . . The ceramic enthusiast will be rewarded for paging through this superb book . . .The integrated approach to Yuan culture, across media and disciplinary boundaries, is this works greatest contribution, making it an exploration in fascinating detail and inspiring breadth of the complex and layered realities of Yuan society. * George Manginis, <i>Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter</i> * Richly illustrated, The Mongol Century synthesizes twenty years of transformative research on the art of the Mongol-Yuan dynasty that has articulated its cultural pluralism. Showcasing many new perspectives on the visual and material cultures of this polity, The Mongol Century reinforces the message of seminal work undertaken by many scholars in ground-breaking journal articles, doctoral dissertations, and major museum exhibitions and their accompanying catalogs. * Journal of Song-Yuan Studies * This book takes on one of the most fascinating of Chinas dynasties, the Mongol Yuan, presenting an overarching study of its cultural complexity, illuminated by the visual arts. McCausland uses the capitals cityscape, paintings and objects as entries into seven larger themes that range from the nature of the Mongol urbanism to the global branding of the Mongols through the widespread export of blue-and-white porcelain. McCausland is a nimble writer and he has crafted a much more granular and balanced view of this accomplished and flawed dynasty than anything so far published in English . . . a must-read. * Patricia Berger, Professor of Chinese Art, UC Berkeley * One of the first reliable social histories of Yuan dynasty art and a useful contribution to Chinese art history. * Morris Rossabi, Adjunct Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History, Columbia University * This is an important contribution to the study of the Mongol-Yuan period in China. Using a wide variety of sources, Shane McCausland has not only written a general study of Yuan-dynasty visual and material culture he has also created a fine introduction to the Mongol period in China. He makes clear the poly-ethnic nature of Yuan society and redresses the view that the Mongols had little impact on Chinese civilization . . . McCausland has achieved his aim of drawing out the distinctiveness of Yuan culture. The Mongol Century is a fascinating entr&#233e into what it meant to live in Yuan-period China. * David Ake Sensabaugh, Ruth and Bruce Dayton Curator of Asian Art, Yale University Art Gallery *

A richly textured portrait in codex of the easternmost part of this world. . . . Superbly illustrated not only for the number and quality of the images but also for the inclusion of rarely-seen joys. . . . The ceramic enthusiast will be rewarded for paging through this superb book. . . . The integrated approach to Yuan culture, across media and disciplinary boundaries, is this work's greatest contribution, making it an exploration in fascinating detail and inspiring breadth of the complex and layered realities of Yuan society. --George Manginis Oriental Ceramic Society Newsletter One of the first reliable social histories of Yuan dynasty art and a useful contribution to Chinese art history. --Morris Rossabi, adjunct professor of Chinese and Inner Asian history, Columbia University This book takes on one of the most fascinating of China's dynasties, the Mongol Yuan, presenting an overarching study of its cultural complexity, illuminated by the visual arts. McCausland uses the capital's cityscape, paintings, and objects as entries into seven larger themes that range from the nature of the Mongol urbanism to the global branding of the Mongols through the widespread export of blue-and-white porcelain. McCausland is a nimble writer and he has crafted a much more granular and balanced view of this accomplished and flawed dynasty than anything so far published in English. . . . A must-read. --Patricia Berger, professor of Chinese art, University of California, Berkeley Through an interweaving of architecture, tomb robbing, painting, natural disasters, examinations, ceramic invention, and a revealing use of encyclopaedic printed works, McCausland reveals the complex culture of the Yuan dynasty. . . . McCausland has a gift for finding illuminating and unusual objects to illustrate his argument. -- Burlington Magazine Richly illustrated, The Mongol Century synthesizes twenty years of transformative research on the art of the Mongol-Yuan dynasty that has articulated its cultural pluralism. Showcasing many new perspectives on the visual and material cultures of this polity, The Mongol Century reinforces the message of seminal work undertaken by many scholars in groundbreaking journal articles, doctoral dissertations, and major museum exhibitions and their accompanying catalogs. -- Journal of Song-Yuan Studies This is an important contribution to the study of the Mongol-Yuan period in China. Using a wide variety of sources, McCausland has not only written a general study of Yuan dynasty visual and material culture he has also created a fine introduction to the Mongol period in China. He makes clear the polyethnic nature of Yuan society and redresses the view that the Mongols had little impact on Chinese civilization. . . . McCausland has achieved his aim of drawing out the distinctiveness of Yuan culture. The Mongol Century is a fascinating entree into what it meant to live in Yuan-period China. --David Ake Sensabaugh, Ruth and Bruce Dayton Curator of Asian Art, Yale University Art Gallery

Author Information

Shane McCausland is Percival David Professor of the History of Art at SOAS University of London. His many books include The Mongol Century: Visual Cultures of Yuan China, 1271–1368 (Reaktion Books, 2014), and he has curated numerous exhibitions in Europe, North America and China.

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