John Keay
Zhang of the Ming
‘The thing about history is that those who really should write it, don’t; while those who should not be writing it, do.’ So thought Zhang Dai, the seventeenth-century Chinese bon viveur, writer and antiquarian who is the subject of Jonathan Spence’s latest foray into the literature of the later Ming period (c.1570–1644). Zhang Dai numbered himself among those who shouldn’t be writing history. He believed, like Su Dongpo, the eleventh-century poet and essayist, that ‘history was never easy to write and that he was not the person to try’. It was never easy, partly because of the risk of incurring official disfavour – punishments ranged from castration to execution, with the ‘privilege of suicide’ being the softest option – and partly because of the responsibility involved in contributing to a historiographical tradition that had all the weight of divine scripture.
On both counts it was advisable to choose one’s words with the utmost care, keep a low profile, and publish, if at all, posthumously. But Zhang went ahead anyway. He consoled himself with the thought that he had more insight and certainly more experience than those ‘walking bookshelves [who] read
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Within hours, the news spread. A grimy gang of desperadoes had been captured just in time to stop them setting out on an assassination plot of shocking audacity.'
@katheder on the Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/butchers-knives-treason-and-plot
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger