A “gripping historical adventure” of ancient Vietnam based on the true story of two warrior sisters who raised an army of women to overthrow the Han Chinese and rule as kings over a united people, for readers of Circe and The Night Tiger (Booklist). Gather around, children of Chu Dien, and be brave. For even to listen to the story of the Trung Sisters is, in these troubled times, a dangerous act. In 40 CE, in the Au Lac region of ancient Vietnam, two daughters of a Vietnamese Lord fill their days training, studying, and trying to stay true to Vietnamese traditions. While Trung Trac is disciplined and wise, always excelling in her duty, Trung Nhi is fierce and free spirited, more concerned with spending time in the gardens and with lovers. But these sister's lives—and the lives of their people—are shadowed by the oppressive rule of the Han Chinese. They are forced to adopt Confucian teachings, secure marriages, and pay ever‑increasing taxes. As the peoples' frustration boils over, the country comes ever closer to the edge of war. When Trung Trac and Trung Nhi's father is executed, their world comes crashing down around them. With no men to save them against the Han's encroaching regime, they must rise and unite the women of Vietnam into an army. Solidifying their status as champions of women and Vietnam, they usher in a period of freedom and independence for their people. Vivid, lyrical, and filled with adventure, The Bronze Drum is a true story of standing up for one's people, culture, and country that has been passed down through generations of Vietnamese families through oral tradition. Phong Nguyen's breathtaking novel takes these real women out of legends and celebrates their loves, losses, and resilience in this inspirational story of women's strength and power even in the face of the greatest obstacles.

This fundamental study provides the first comprehensive history in any language of the lands between the Red and Pearl Rivers in southern China and the people who resided there over a span of a thousand years. Bringing to life the mysterious early people known as Li and Lao who inhabited the area, Catherine Churchman explores their custom of casting large bronze kettledrums. As the symbols of political authority and legitimacy for the Li and Lao rulers, the abundance of drums found in the archaeological record is an indication not only of the great number of such rulers, but also of their great wealth and power, which increased significantly from the third century CE even as the Chinese Empires tightened their control over surrounding districts. Drawing on a combination of Classical Chinese sources and scholarship in archaeology, anthropology, and historical linguistics, the author explains the political and economic factors behind the rise to power and subsequent disappearance of the indigenous leadership and its drum culture. She fills significant gaps in our understanding of the early interactions between China and northern Southeast Asia, challenging many widely held assumptions about the history of Chinese settlement and ethnic relations in the region, including those concerning the relationship between the Chinese Empires and the lands that would form the heart of a future Vietnamese state. A crucial work for understanding historical developments in the highland regions south of the Yangtze valley, it examines the first steps in the Sinic penetration of this highland world, one that has continued to the present. Bringing unprecedented attention to the historical identity of a previously overlooked region and a people, this book creates a new category in East Asian history.

The persistence of ritualized hopes and beliefs expressed visually on Karen bronze drums is presented through an extended analysis of the motifs on the tympani of 370 drums. Numerical, configurational, and cultural arguments are supported by copious tables and illustrations.

Examines the transmission of ceremonial Dong Son bronze drums from their centres of production in north Vietnam and its immediate environs along river and maritime routes throughout mainland and island Southeast Asia from the perspective of Late Metal Age exchange networks. Examining the distribution across present national boundaries, this study focuses on what type of drums are found where to identify different phases and routes of transmission.

In The Drum: A History, drummer, instructor, and blogger Matt Dean details the earliest evidence of the drum from all regions of the world, looking at cave paintings, statues, temple reliefs, burial remains, even existing relics of actual drums that have survived for thousands of years. Highlighting the different uses and customs associated with drumming, Dean examines how the drum developed across many cultures and over thousands of years before it became the instrument we know today. A celebration of this remarkable instrument, The Drum explores how war, politics, trade routes, and religion influenced the instrument's development. Bringing its history to the present, Dean considers the modern cultural and commercial face of the drum, detailing its role in military settings and the creation of the modern drum kit, as well as the continuing evolution of the drum, manufacturers, and the increased dependence on electronic drums, sampling machines* and drum recorders. Finally, drum fans will have at their fingertips the biographies of great drummers and major drumming achievements in the history of performance. The Drum: A History will appeal to every drummer, regardless of genre or style, as well as readers with a general interest in the evolution of this universal instrument. Book jacket.

This book addresses the controversy over the origins of the Bronze Age of Southeast Asia. Charles Higham provides a systematic and regional presentation of the current evidence. He suggests that the adoption of metallurgy in the region followed a period of growing exchange with China. Higham then traces the development of Bronze Age cultures, identifying regionality and innovation, and suggesting how and why distinct cultures developed. This book is the first comprehensive study of the period, placed within a broader comparative framework.

The Epics of China introduces selected epic traditions of China, providing information about them, insights into their literary traditions, and theories concerning their origins, historical development, cultural context, structure, bards, and audiences. The book deals with both historical epics and contemporary “living” epic traditions. Examples are drawn from several of China’s fifty-five official ethnic minority peoples, focusing on epics from various historical or present-day Mongol subgroups of North China, most notably Tibetan and Kirgiz, as well as epics from peoples of Southwest China, such as the Zhuang, Yi, Miao, Dong, and Dai. Several chapters deal, too, with the early Turkic epics that once circulated in parts of northern China and Central Asia. On the whole, the book’s chapters are grouped into three sections: early epics, small and medium-length epics, and the great heroic epics Jangar and Manas. Epics from the North are mainly heroic narratives focusing on the exploits of martial heroes. They feature story lines centered on bride-kidnapping, trials undergone by the suitor, and encounters with multi-headed demons (Mongol mangus), one-eyed giants, and female demons of the underworld. Southern epics focus on tales of how early deities created the sky, earth, water and land forms, and living beings, often listing specific plants, animals, and local tribes. Some of these epics involve female creator figures, and many play out in a dynamic process that moves through phases of initial creation, destruction by fire, a second creation, a destructive flood, and the ultimate re-creation of the world as we now know it. There are also heroic epics from southern China, most notably from the Yi, Dai, and Miao.

The Encyclopedia of Prehistory represents also defined bya somewhatdifferent set of an attempt to provide basic information sociocultural characteristics than are eth on all archaeologically known cultures, nological cultures. Major traditions are covering the entire globe and the entire defined based on common subsistence prehistory ofhumankind. It is designed as practices, sociopolitical organization, and a tool to assist in doing comparative materialindustries,butlanguage,ideology, research on the peoples of the past. Most and kinship ties play little or no part in of the entries are written by the world's their definition because they are virtually foremost experts on the particular areas unrecoverable from archaeological con and time periods. texts. In contrast, language, ideology, and The Encyclopedia is organized accord kinship ties are central to defining ethno ing to major traditions. A major tradition logical cultures. is defined as a group ofpopulations sharing There are three types ofentries in the similar subsistence practices, technology, Encyclopedia: the major tradition entry, and forms of sociopolitical organization, the regional subtradition entry, and the which are spatially contiguous over a rela site entry. Each contains different types of tively large area and which endure tempo information, and each is intended to be rally for a relatively long period. Minimal used in a different way.