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Chinese Almanacs

Richard J. Smith is a historian of late imperial China, and this short volume, published by Oxford University Press in its Images of Asia series, an accessible academic paperback line aimed at general but serious readers rather than specialists, surveys the tong shu almanac tradition, its calendrical, astrological and divinatory content, and its everyday use in Chinese life. Its strength is Smith's own specialist standing in Qing intellectual and popular culture, treating the almanac's ordinary domestic function as a real historical subject rather than a curiosity. Because the Images of Asia format is deliberately brief and written for a broad readership rather than a full monograph, it summarizes rather than exhaustively documents its subject, and a reader wanting the deepest technical treatment of almanac calculation should look to Smith's own longer academic studies of the same material.

Facts
Assessment
Reliability Tier
2
Richard Smith's short illustrated introduction in Oxford University Press's popular Images of Asia series, not a peer-reviewed monograph, which is why it sits at this tier rather than the top tier given alongside the same author's more substantial scholarly works; traces the almanac's links to traditional calendars, astrology and divination from the Tang dynasty to the present.
Notes
ISBN 0195852885 / 9780195852882, OCLC 25832973. A short illustrated introduction (x, 93pp) in Oxford University Press's popular Images of Asia series, not a peer-reviewed monograph, hence reliability tier 2 rather than the tier 1 given Smith's own Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World (source 15276, already live) or Ho Peng Yoke's Chinese Mathematical Astrology (source 15307, already live). Traces the almanac's links to traditional calendars, astrology and divination from the Tang dynasty to the present, illustrated with the twelve-year animal cycle and its accompanying guidance text, which is what makes it the right fit for the folk zodiac reading and cross-cultural variant content Science and Civilisation in China Vol 3 excludes by its own scope. Checked against a Cambridge Core (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society) review, WorldCat, the National Library of Australia catalogue and Google Books; a distinct work from the same author's other two books already in this database. Cited here for the sexagenary zodiac half residue, not for the mechanics half, which stays on Science and Civilisation Vol 3.
Citation
Author
Richard J. Smith
Publisher
Oxford University Press, Hong Kong (Images of Asia series)
Publication Year
1992
URL
https://search.worldcat.org/title/chinese-almanacs/oclc/25832973
Source Type
academic monograph
Connections

Associated With

Asia, Continents

This source names Asia directly: "University Press in its Images of Asia series, an accessible academic paperback line aimed at general but serious readers rather than specialists, surveys the tong shu almanac tradition, its..."

Source Chinese AlmanacsRichard J. Smith
China, Countries

This source names China directly: "Smith is a historian of late imperial China, and this short volume, published by Oxford University Press in its Images of Asia series, an accessible academic paperback line aimed at general but..."

Source Chinese AlmanacsRichard J. Smith
Claims Backed By This Source (111 claims)

This source backs 111 claims across the atlas. As facts: 109 well-attested. As cited relationships: 2 holds.

Disposition By Topic

  • Articles, 101 claims: 101 well-attested.
  • Sources, 10 claims: 8 well-attested, 2 holds.

Well-attested

109

Articles

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Showing 1 to 50 of 102 entities carrying this claim.

Holds

2

Sources

Chinese Almanacs
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