The Human Tradition in Pre-modern China. Here's a recent addition to my bookshelf. Curious about Shang Dynasty oracle bones, women warriors, Taoist divination practices, T'ang Dynasty bureacrats, eunuchs, and other colorful characters and customs? If so, you'll appreciate The Human Tradition in Pre-Modern China (ISBN: 0-8420-2959-1), edited by Kenneth J. Hammond. Each essay focuses on a single historical personage in and through (and sometimes against) whom the tendencies of his or her particular era are revealed. This erudite and entertaining collection of essays covers the span of Chinese history as well as the diversity of its social types and roles. By the time you are done reading, you'll be seeing Chinese history not thru a glass darkly, but thru the eyes of the Shang Dynasty consort, Fu Hao, or the Song Dynasty patriot-warrior, Yue Fei. Your reviews and comments on individual essays or the collection as a whole are welcome here.

Faces of Asia at the Sackler (7/1 - 9/4/06)--I will be in Virginia from 7/20-7/25 visting my wife's family in the Shenandoah Valley, but hope to run over to D.C. to take in this exhibit at the Sackler. Yesterday's Washington Post article framed the exhibit this way: "It's a mistaken notion that portraiture is a uniquely, or even predominantly, Western tradition, a notion reinforced, if inadvertently, by the newly reopened National Portrait Gallery, whose purview is exclusively American. By all means, visit the refurbished and revitalized Old Patent Office Building, which just opened this month after a 6 1/2 -year renovation, for a taste of portraiture of Americans past and present. Then stop by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery for "Facing East: Portraits From Asia." There, you'll encounter some of the same issues and questions posed by the National Portrait Gallery about the nature and purpose of portraiture -- plus a few new ones. It's all in a small but thoughtful exhibition of historical works from Japan, China, Iran, India, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Nepal, and contemporary pieces by the Korean-born Do-ho Suh and the Iraqi-born Jannane al-Ani." The Sackler's excellent website <http://www.asia.si.edu/ includes podcasts of Asian music and Silk Road-related scholarship as well.