The Forbidden City by Geremie R. Barme

From the Publisher

Read supplementary material prepared by Geremie Barmé

Read the Bldg Blog interview with Mary Beard about the Wonders of the World series( Part I and Part II)

The Forbidden City (Zijin Cheng) lying at the heart of Beijing formed the hub of the Celestial Empire for five centuries. Over the past century it has led a reduced life as the refuge for a deposed emperor, as well as a heritage museum for monarchist, republican, and socialist citizens, and it has been celebrated and excoriated as a symbol of all that was magnificent and terrible in dynastic China’s legacy.

The Forbidden City’s vermilion walls have fueled literary fantasies that have become an intrinsic part of its disputed and documented history. Mao Zedong even considered razing the entire structure to make way for the buildings of a new socialist China. The fictions surrounding the Forbidden City have also had an international reach, and writers like Franz Kafka, Elias Canetti, Jorge Luis Borges, and Mervyn Peake have all succumbed to its myths. The politics it enshrined have provided the vocabulary of power that is used in China to the present day, though it is now better known as a film set or the background of displays of opera, rock, and fashion.

Geremie Barmé peels away the veneer of power, secrecy, inscrutability, and passions of imperial China, to provide a new and original history of the culture, politics, and architecture of the Forbidden City. Designed to overawe the visitor with the power of imperial China, the Forbidden City remains one of the true wonders of the world.

Tessa L.H. Minchew - Library Journal

Covering almost 178 acres, the Forbidden City in the center of Beijing was designed to be an earthly expression of the Chinese celestial emperor's majesty, inspiring awe in his subjects. Though the Chinese imperial dynasties are no more, the "Great Within" continues to entrance people around the globe. Barmé (Pacific & Asian history, Australian National Univ.; Shades of Mao) applies his extensive expertise to creating this guide, written for "the intelligent ignorant," as the series' editor defines its readership. Barmé has hit the mark, offering a richly detailed yet accessible thematic history of the Forbidden City, including its architecture and its inhabitants, with commentary on international perceptions of Chinese culture. He does an excellent job of providing enough background information to aid those not as well versed in Chinese history as he is while objectively presenting historical events that could be easily politicized. Recommended for academic and public libraries. (Illustrations not seen.)

Product Details

• ISBN: 0674027795
  
• ISBN-13: 9780674027794
• Format: Hardcover, 251pp
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Pub. Date: May 2008
• Sales Rank: 95,003
• Series: Wonders of the World Ser.