1 comments about Barbarian Lens: Western Photographers of the Qianlong Emperor's European Palaces (Documenting the Image Series).

1. Régine Thiriez, an independent scholar who holds a Ph.D. in art history and is currently an associate research fellow in the East Asia Institute in Lyon (France), preparing an inventory of China photography, presents a substantial body of important new research on photography in China from the early years in the mid-19th century to 1860 as well as Qing dynasty China's reception of European technology. Her study, Barbarian Lens: Western Photographer's of the Qianlong Emperor's European Palaces, explores the Western involvement with the ruins of the European-style buildings constructed for the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-1795) in his summer palace of the Yuanmingyuan, the "old" summer palace outside Beijing. The Yuanmingyuan was sacked and burned in 1860 by a French and British expeditionary force. Only the European part of the garden, constructed of brick and masonry, left substantial ruins. Standing mysteriously on the overgrown grounds of the half-abandoned site, the ruins exerted a powerful pull on European memories of the humiliation of the Emperor of China, and the shameful part played by Western armies in the destruction of the incomparable garden-palace and the treasures kept there. Such are the troubled feelings invoked by photographic images of the ruins. Placing the extant photographs in their historical context, Thiriez makes available to the interested reader and China specialist alike unprecedented primary research on the beginnings of photography in China, the identities and careers of the mostly little-known men who produced photographic images, and the complex relationships between photography and Western penetration of China. Barbarian Lens contains a wealth of scholarly information, presented in clear and succinct detail. Individual chapters focus on the practice of photography in Beijing (beginning in the early 1860s), the tragic encounter of China and Europe in the destruction of the Summer Palace, the amateur and professional photographers of the ruins, as well as the overlapping personal, political, and photographic ambitions of men in the Qing Imperial Maritime Customs, Western diplomatic missions, and other various undertakings. The volume is amply illustrated with more than 50 images-most of them previously unpublished-and includes extensive appendices on such subjects as the pioneering French Mission Palais d'Été studies of the European palaces. Perhaps the most impressive appendix is an exhaustive 24-page list of all the photographs of the European ruins identified by Thiriez to date. It tabulates photographers, photographic collections and sources, cataloguing information on the individual prints surveyed, the most likely date of the photo, additional reprints or rephotography of the same images (a very thorny problem in early photography), and the importance of the photo to the study of the place. It also cross-references the images, showing how they complement each other through the years. The appendices, notes, and bibliography supplement a richly rewarding text and generously make available the result of a decade of painstaking research in an almost unknown and unstudied field. In a volume that presents a complex, fascinating, and sometimes horrifying story of destruction and recovery, Régine Thiriez's contributions to the history of China photography and the fast-growing field of Qing dynasty historical studies are invaluable.

No comments about China Map.

1 comments about The Ochre Border: A Journey Through the Tibetan Frontierlands.

1. Justine Hardy a young british adventurer gathered a group of travelers together when the area in Ladakh, India was just opened for recreational travel. She writes a fascinating account of this journey that is well worth reading if you plan any travel in the Indian Himalaya.

   
   She has spent many years working and traveling in India and her love of the country and affection for the many who assisted her on this innovative journey is apparent. Well worth the effort if you can find this out of print book

No comments about Arka Tagh the Mysterious Mountains.

No comments about A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680-1785 (Harvard East Asian Monographs).

No comments about An Australian in China: Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across Chin.

No comments about Insight Pocket Guide Tibet: Lhasa-Kathmandu (Insight Pocket Guide Tibet).

No comments about Korea and Her Neighbours: A Narrative of Travel, with an Account of the Recent Vicissitudes and Present Position of the Country.

No comments about Above The City: Hiking Hong Kong Island.

1 comments about Insight City Guide Beijing (Insight City Guides (Book & Restaruant Guide)).

1. Normally, I strictly stick to Lonely Planet guidebooks when buying for my travels, but for my recent trip to Beijing, I made an impulse decision to buy this Insight Guide to accompany the LP City guide I had already purchased. I was pleasantly surprised at just how good the Insight guide was.
   
   Illustrated in full colour throughout, the book gives the usual history of the capital of China, as well as sight details of all the major sights in Beijing and the surrounding vicinity, including of course the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall. However, I don't think the book lists quite as much activities and sights as the LP book, but for short term visitors I don't think this would be much of a problem. Usually when travelling I struggle to do even a quarter of the activities and sights that are listed in guidebooks. I note that the maps are quite good, a little better for detail than the maps found in the LP book.
   
   In a neat touch, it also includes a seperate map of resturants in a little pocket on the inside back cover. Structurally, the book is very sound, with a good tough binding to cope with the usual rough treatment that travel accords guidebooks. It even has a piece of cardboard designed to fit around the pocket holding the resturant map on the inside back cover.
   
   This guide is recommended as an alternative to the Lonely Planet book - it helps that this edition of the Insight guide is 6 months newer, and a little cheaper, than the equivalent LP edition for those you note such things. But guidebooks are out of date the moment they get printed, particularly for a city such as Beijing which is rapidly developing for the Olympics in 2008.
   
   If you are planning to visit Beijing in the next few months, be aware that a lot of the major sights such as the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven are under restoration (for the Olympics), with scaffolding to be found in abundance. Some portions of the Forbidden City were closed off when I visited in July.