[HN Gopher] Book Review: 1587, a Year of No Significance ___________________________________________________________________ Book Review: 1587, a Year of No Significance Author : Michelangelo11 Score : 46 points Date : 2022-08-20 16:38 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (astralcodexten.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (astralcodexten.substack.com) | codetrotter wrote: | Apparently this blog (Astral Codex Ten) is the successor to Slate | Star Codex. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Star_Codex | cato_the_elder wrote: | With the improvement that the new name is a more proper anagram | of "Scott Alexander". The old name was almost an anagram of | "Scott S Alexander", with the blemish of missing an N. [1] | | [1]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/02/12/youre-probably- | wonderi... | mrec wrote: | Although for some reason its RSS feed seems to get consistently | ignored by my reader (Feedreader). Never had that problem with | SSC. | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: | Reading this reminds me of Faulkner's line: "The past is never | dead. It's not even past" | | The Ming was heavily influenced by the Han Empire which was more | than a thousand years in the past. | | Even today, there seems to be a current of rejection of the 20th | century (and even before) and a strong push for something before | that. | | Xi in China seems more like a Ming Grand Secretary, than really | anything Communist. | | Modi in India calls forth the Hindu Empires of the Middle Ages | and before than he does Nehru or Gandhi. | | Erodogan is more Ottoman in outlook than Kemalist | | Putin can best be understood through a Tsarist lens and his | perception of himself as another Peter the Great. | | Even the right wing in the US looks back more to Medieval | European state sponsored Christianity than the Enlightenment | influence of the US founding. | mistrial9 wrote: | yeah - I like this one.. but for another angle, sometimes a | military will go to war despite its people, not for them. | Corollary - military leaders have to ride their own ranks, | which can look overly aggressive, foolish, inept or scared from | the outside, since all the talks are war council secret within. | ilamont wrote: | In the late 1980s while at college, this wonderful book was | assigned as part of a history of dynastic China, which followed a | reliable pattern for thousands of years: strong founder (often a | military leader), establishment of an imperial and military | bureaucracy capable of managing crises and expansion, then | ossification and failure owing to weak leadership and various | internal and external threats. | | While the model of a weak/incompetent emperor late in the dynasty | was well known, few studies attempted to answer the _why_ as | Huang did with his book. He told it as a very readable and | interesting story and struggle of personality amidst a backdrop | of intrigue and crises. | | It's actually unfair to call the Wanli emperor incompetent; as | Huang so beautifully illustrated in his book, he was a product | and victim of the system. He protested in one of the few ways he | could: doing nothing. By withdrawing from his responsibility, he | created a vacuum which other forces were able to take advantage | of, hastening the decline of the Ming dynasty. | | I still have my copy of _1587_ , and re-read it every 5 or 10 | years. If you can't find or don't have time for the book, check | out the excellent film _Fall of Ming_ (Da Ming Jie ) set later in | the dynasty. | jmeister wrote: | Here is that pattern in meme form: | | _Hard times create strong men. | | Strong men create autocratic dynasties. | | Autocratic dynasties create supernumerary bureaucracies. | | Supernumerary bureaucracies create eunuch castes. | | Eunuch castes create drama. | | Drama creates Heavenly displeasure. | | Heavenly displeasure creates hard times._ | | https://twitter.com/thocpodcast/status/1471276360106582016 | Tomte wrote: | Also see https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the- | fremen-mirage-... | JackFr wrote: | The descriptions of the childe empower in the Forbidden City and | scheming civil servants remind me very much of "Titus Groan" and | "Gormenghast". I need to check this book out. | keepquestioning wrote: | How does this book compare to Guns, Germs and Steel? | whoisburbansky wrote: | What makes you think they are related? | meq1986 wrote: | Chineses version ,Mo Li Shi Wu Nian ,very famous in China. I | recommend anther book called Macro History of China, also written | by Huang. | sam_lowry_ wrote: | Reminds me of 1185 by Ihor Mozheiko that is still waiting for an | English translation. | bodhiandphysics wrote: | No significance!! 1587 is the year Kit Marlowe wrote Tamerlane | and Thomas Kyd wrote The Spanish Tragedy. Those two plays | revolutionized English drama and started off the Elizabethan | literary renaissance. | galleywest200 wrote: | Your response made me laugh, but the book is actually more | narrow than the post title suggests | | > 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline | hamiltonians wrote: | can someone tldr what made this year special or why this year was | chosen | j4nt4b wrote: | It's in the title - nothing special happens in this year. It is | just another year in the late Ming dynasty, still a long way | off from its eventual demise. But the author uses this moment | as a springboard to describe what the principals did in the | past and what they would end up doing in the future. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-08-20 23:00 UTC)