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The Mythistorical Chinese Scholar-Rebel-Advisor Li Yan
A Global Perspective, 1606-2018
Series: - Leiden Series in Comparative Historiography, Volume: 12
Author:
Roger Des Forges here examines the puzzle of Li Yan, a Chinese scholar who advised the rebel Li Zicheng (1605-1645), and helped him to overthrow the Ming, only to die at his hands. For more than three centuries, Li Yan’s identity and even existence were seriously questioned. Then, in 2004, there was discovered a genealogical manuscript which includes a Li Yan (1606-1644). He now appears to be the principal historical reality behind the Li Yan story, which became a powerful metaphor for the rise and fall of Li Zicheng’s rebellion. Offering a fresh theory of Chinese and world history, the author elucidates Li Yan’s historical significance by comparing and contrasting him with similar figures in other times and places around the globe.
Roger Des Forges (Ph.D. Yale, 1971) is Professor of History Emeritus, University at Buffalo (SUNY). Among many other publications, he authored Cultural Centrality and Political Change in Chinese History: Northeast Henan in the Fall of the Ming(Stanford, 2003) and co-edited Representing Lives in China: Forms of Biography in the Ming-Qing Period (1368-1911) (Cornell, 2018).
This book is for undergraduates, graduate students, specialists in Ming and Qing history, and the general reading public wanting to know more about Chinese and world history and historiography.