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China's art objects and traditionally manufactured products have long been sought by collectors&#8212;from porcelains and silk fabrics to furniture and even the lacquered chopsticks that are a distant relation to ones found in most Chinese restaurants. <i>Things Chinese</i> presents sixty distinctive items that are typical of Chinese culture and together open a special window onto the people, history, and society of the world's largest nation. Many of the objects are collectibles, and each has a story to tell. <br><br>The objects relate to six major areas of cultural life: the home, the personal, arts & crafts, eating & drinking, entertainment, and religious practice. They include items both familiar and unfamiliar&#8212;from snuff bottles and calligraphy scrolls to moon cake molds and Mao memorabilia. Ronald Knapp's evocative text describes the history, cultural significance, and customs relating to each object, while Michael Freeman's superb photographs illustrate them. Together, text and photographs offer a unique look at the material culture of China and the aesthetics that inform it.

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As many as 15,000 covered bridges were built in North America over the past 200 years. Fewer than 1,000 remain. In America's Covered Bridges , authors Terry E. Miller and Ronald G. Knapp tell the fascinating story of these bridges, how they were built, the technological breakthroughs required to construct them and above all the dedication and skill of their builders. Each wooden bridge, whether still standing or long gone, has a story to tell about the nature of America at the time&#8212;not only about its transportational needs, but the availability of materials and the technological prowess of the people who built it. Illustrated with some 550 historical and contemporary photos, paintings, and technical drawings of nearly 400 different covered bridges, America's Covered Bridges offers five readable chapters on the history, design and fate of America's covered bridges, plus related bridges in Canada. Most of the contemporary photography is by master photographer A. Chester Ong of Hong Kong. 55 photo essays on the most iconic bridges including: Cornish-Windsor Bridge between Vermont and New Hampshire Porter-Parsonsfield Bridge, Maine East Paden and West Paden (Twin Bridges), PennsylvaniaPhilippi Bridge, West VirginiaHortons Mill Bridge, AlabamaMedora Bridge, IndianaRock Mill Bridge, OhioKnight's Ferry Bridge, CaliforniaPerrault Bridge, Quebec, CanadaHartland Bridge, New Brunswick, Canada Over time, wooden bridges eventually gave way to ones made of iron, steel and concrete. An American icon, many covered bridges became obsolete and were replaced&#8212others simply decayed and collapsed. Many more were swept away by natural disasters and fires. America's Covered Bridges is absolutely packed with fascinating stories and information passionately told by two leading experts on this subject. The book will be of tremendous interest to anyone interested in American history, carpentry and technological change.

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Discover the rarified Peranakan (native-born Chinese of Southeast Asia) aesthetics that are today highly sought-after for their beauty: distinctive furniture and ceramics, textiles and jewelry, and many other art objects. <I>Peranakan Chinese Home</I> displays these extraordinary objects, visible markers of a highly developed culture. <BR><BR>The broad range of beautiful objects which the Peranakan Chinese created and enjoyed in their daily lives is astounding. Each chapter in <I>The Peranakan Chinese Home</I> focuses on a different area and presents objects used or found in those spaces. Each piece is described in the context of their utility as household objects, as part of periodic celebrations to mark the Chinese New Year and other holidays, or in important life passage rituals relating to ancestor worship, birth, marriage, mourning and burial. The meaning of the rich symbolic and ornamental motifs found on the objects is discussed in detail and key differences are highlighted between Peranakan objects and similar ones found in China.<BR><BR>A fascinating mix of Chinese, European and Southeast Asian influences, the distinctly Peranakan identity of a people and their culture is beautifully portrayed through objects and archival photographs in this lovely and exotic book.

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Featuring over 350 beautiful photographs, Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia captures the architectural heritage of a vibrant community. The multiple Chinese migrations from southeastern China to Southeast Asia have had important implications for both regions. In Southeast Asia this influence can be seen in the architecturally eclectic homes these migrants and their descendants built as they became successful; homes that combined Chinese, European and local influences, especially during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia[/i] strives not only to be an informative but also an authoritative book on the subject of hybrid architecture&#8212;filled with stunning color photographs and essays on nearly thirty well-preserved homes. An introductory essay portrays the historical circumstances that gave rise to Chinese houses overseas, and includes historic images, color photographs, paintings and line drawings. At the core of the book is a comprehensive set of stunning color photographs of nearly thirty well-preserved homes built by Chinese immigrants and their descendants in various countries of Southeast Asia. Images and drawings from southeastern China help clarify similarities and differences. For each home, extensive captions accompany the photographs and the essay supplies background information concerning the individual and family who built and resided in each house. The historical context, nature of the building, and the restoration history of the home is included. Extensive information about the symbolism implicit in the decorative elements that make up each of the homes is presented. This includes an examination of ornamental elements that are Chinese in origin as well as those decorative components that are Western. Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia has been written in a nontechnical style, accessible to lay readers who are interested in the extraordinary architectural heritage of China, much of which is only now beginning to be appreciated.

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Bridges, the least known and understood of China's many wonders, are one of its most striking and resilient feats of architectural prowess. Chinese Bridges brings together a thorough look at the marvels of Chinese bridge design from one of the world's leading experts on Chinese culture and historical geography, Ronald G. Knapp. While many consider bridges to be merely utilitarian civil engineering, the bridges of China move beyond that stereotype, as many are undeniably dramatic, even majestic and daring. Chinese Bridges illustrates in detail 20 well-preserved ancient bridges along with descriptions and essays on the distinctive architectural elements shared by the various designs. For the first time in an English-language book, Chinese Bridges records scores of newly discovered bridges across China's vast landscape, illustrated with over 400 color photographs, as well as woodblock prints, historic images, paintings and line drawings.

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