Mon premier blog

A hundred years before Columbus and his fellow Europeans began making their way to the New World, fleets of giant Chinese junks commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He and filled with the empire's finest porcelains, lacquerware, and silk ventured to the edge of the world's 'four corners.' It was a time of exploration and conquest, but it ended in a retrenchment so complete that less than a century later, it was a crime to go to sea in a multimasted ship. In When China Ruled the Seas, Louise Levathes takes a fascinating and unprecedented look at this dynamic period in China's enigmatic history, focusing on China's rise as a naval power that literally could have ruled the world and at its precipitious plunge into isolation when a new emperor ascended the Dragon Throne. During the brief period from 1405 to 1433, seven epic expeditions brought China's 'treasure ships' across the China Seas and the Indian Ocean, from Taiwan to the spice islands of Indonesia and the Malabar coast of India, on to the rich ports of the Persian Gulf and down the African coast, China's 'El Dorado', and perhaps even to Australia, three hundred years before Captain Cook was credited with its discovery. With over 300 ships - some measuring as much as 400 feet long and 160 feet wide, with upwards of nine masts and twelve sails, and combined crews sometimes numbering over 28,000 men - the emperor Zhu Di's fantastic fleet was a virtual floating city, a naval expression of his Forbidden City in Beijing. The largest wooden boats ever built, these extraordinary ships were the most technically superior vessels in the world with innovations such as balanced rudders and bulwarked compartments that predated European ships by centuries. For thirty years foreign goods, medicines, geographic knowledge, and cultural insights flowed into China at an extraordinary rate, and China extended its sphere of political power and influence throughout the Indian Ocean. Half the world was in China's grasp, and the rest could easily have been, had the emperor so wished. But instead, China turned inward, as suceeding emperors forbade overseas travel and stopped all building and repair of oceangoing junks. Disobedient merchants and seamen were killed, and within a hundred years the greatest navy the world had ever known willed itself into extinction. The period of China's greatest outward expansion was followed by the period of its greatest isolation. Drawing on eye-witness accounts, official Ming histories, and African, Arab, and Indian sources, many translated for the first time, Levathes brings readers inside China's most illustrious scientific and technological era. She sheds new light on the historical and cultural context in ghich this great civilization thrived, as well as the perception of other cultures toward this little understood empire at the time. Beautifully illustrated and engagingly written, When China Ruled the Seas is the fullest picture yet of the early Ming Dynasty - the last flowering of Chinese culture before the Manchu invasions.

"As much as you transform the land by farming," she writes, "farming transforms you." In her old life, Kimball Dealing with the Tough Stuff: How to Achieve Results from Crucial Conversations download epub would stay out until four a.m., wear heels, and carry a handbag. Now she wakes up at four, wears Carhartts, and carries a pocket knife. At Essex Farm, she discovers the wrenching pleasures of physical work, learns that good food is at the center of a good life, falls deeply in love, and finally finds the engagement and commitment she craved in the form of a man, a small town, and a beautiful piece of land Bruno Alberti and Laurent Pradier have been collecting and writing about U S Marine Corps gear for more than a decade and, in that time, have contributed complete series of articles on the topic in the French Militaria Magazine. That sequence of articles is complete and the time has now come for a revised and expanded version of the results of their work as a single bound volume. The US Marine Corps has always enjoyed a special status among the American Armed Forces, as well as boasting distinctive uniforms and emblems. This new book presents the large variety of dress uniforms for both officers and enlisted men, as well as combat uniforms and specialty camouflage garments. Hundreds of items of clothing, equipment and insignia are illustrated by reenactment photos of the famous 'leathernecks' in the form of large format color plates. Many period photos found in official American archives are also reproduced and help place the reenactment shots in the correct historical context.

____________________________
Author: Louis Levathes
Number of Pages: 256 pages
Published Date: 13 Mar 1997
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Publication Country: New York, United States
Language: English
ISBN: 9780195112078
Download Link: Click Here
____________________________

Tags:

iPad, ebook,read online When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433 by Louis Levathes iPad,pocket, download torrent, book review, kindle, for mac, Louis Levathes free pdf,facebook, mobi, rardownload book, iOS, download ebook, download pdf, ebook pdf, epub download, Read online, iPad, free ebook, paperback, free pdf, fb2,download epub, iPhone, for PC, zip,When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433 iOS,

http://gramnafalpa.mihanblog.com/post/43