A review by lynxylisa
China Between Empires: The Northern and Southern Dynasties by Mark Edward Lewis

4.0

As someone who grew up learning the systematic, chronological, political-centric teaching of Chinese history, I quite appreciated and enjoyed this book's emphasis on patterns in society, religion, literature across the time period. It gave me a much more in-depth, nuanced understanding of the time as opposed to facts and political figures that usually dominate. The main focus of the book seem to be observing how Chinese society transformed from the Han dynasty to the Tang dynasty through various cultural innovations and changes that took place in the North and Southern Dynasties.

I highly recommend this book. It will not teach you chronology, or go in depth into any political or famous figures, but it does very well in capturing an objective observation of the changing of eras.