"In the thirteenth century the Mongols created a vast transcontinental empire that functioned as a cultural "clearing house" for the Old World. Under Mongol auspices various commodities, ideologies, and technologies were disseminated and displayed across Eurasia. The focus of this path-breaking study is the extensive exchanges between Iran and China. The Mongol rulers of these two ancient civilizations "shared" the cultural resources of their realms with one another. The result was lively traffic in specialist personnel and scholarly literature between East and West. These exchanges ranged from cartography to printing, and from agriculture to astronomy. Unexpectedly, the principal conduit of this transmission was an obscure Mongol tribesman, Bolad Aqa, who first served Chinggisid rulers of China and was then posted to Iran where he entered into a close and productive collaboration with the famed Persian statesman and historian. Rashid al-Din. The conclusion of the work examines why the Mongols made such heavy use of sedentary scholars and specialists in the elaboration of their court culture and why they initiated so many exchanges across Eurasia. The book is informative and erudite. It crosses new scholarly boundaries in its analysis of communication and culture in the Mongol Empire and promises to become a classic in the field."--Jacket.

Local access dig.pdf. [Allsen-Mongol Eurasia.pdf]
Also online via Gleeson Library.

What the emperor built : architecture and empire in the early Ming /  Aurelia Campbell.

"The Yongle emperor (r. 1402-24), one of the most famous rulers in Chinese history, is perhaps best known as the builder of Beijing's magnificent Forbidden City and for reconstruction of the Grand Canal. This volume is both the first book-length study in a Western language of Ming dynasty (1368-1644) architecture and the first in any language devoted to the architectural projects of a single Chinese emperor. Focusing on Yongle's imperial palaces in Beijing, a Daoist architectural complex on Mount Wudang, and a Buddhist temple at the Sino-Tibetan frontier, it analyzes his empire-wide construction projects and demonstrates how the siting, design, and use of his palaces and temples established his authority and contributed to the legitimization of his usurpation of power. These architectural projects help us understand his sense of empire by the far-flung locations in which he built, the distant regions from which he extracted the construction materials, and the use of tens of thousands of craftsmen and other laborers. Through his constructions, Yongle connected himself to the divine, interacted with his subjects, established an imperial presence in regions far outside the capital, and shaped his imperial legacy-thus extending imperial influence across space and time. Spanning issues of architectural design and also of construction technologies, this analysis reveals the remarkable advancements in timber-frame construction as well as using an art-historical approach to examine patronage, audience, and reception, and to situate the buildings within their larger social, historical, and religious contexts"-- ǂc Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Perfecting the past : the design and construction of the Northern Capital -- Great pillars of state : the rise and fall of monumental nanmu halls -- Becoming Zhenwu : the imperial turn at Mount Wudang -- From mandala to palace : transforming space and site at Gautama Monastery -- Conclusion : architecture as empire.

Local access dig.pdf. Campbell-What the emperor.pdf

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