922
Lectures Watched
Since January 1, 2014
Since January 1, 2014
- A History of the World since 1300 (67)
- History of Rock, 1970-Present (50)
- A Brief History of Humankind (48)
- The Modern World: Global History since 1760 (35)
- Chinese Thought: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science (34)
- The Bible's Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future (28)
- Introduction aux éthiques philosophiques (27)
- Roman Architecture (25)
- Jesus in Scripture and Tradition (25)
- Sexing the Canvas: Art and Gender (23)
- Descubriendo la pintura europea de 1400 a 1800 (22)
- Introduction aux droits de l'homme (19)
- Buddhism and Modern Psychology (18)
- Calvin: Histoire et réception d'une Réforme (17)
- The Ancient Greeks (16)
- The French Revolution (15)
- À la découverte du théâtre classique français (15)
- Christianisme et philosophie dans l'Antiquité (14)
- Key Constitutional Concepts and Supreme Court Cases (14)
- Letters of the Apostle Paul (14)
- Egiptología (12)
- Western Music History through Performance (10)
- Phenomenology and the Conscious Mind (9)
- Human Evolution: Past and Future (9)
- Greek and Roman Mythology (9)
- Alexander the Great (9)
- The Great War and Modern Philosophy (9)
- The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture (9)
- Villes africaines: la planification urbaine (8)
- Masterpieces of World Literature (8)
- Programming Mobile Applications for Android (7)
- Introduction to Psychology (7)
- Fundamentos de la escritura en español (7)
- MongoDB for Node.js Developers (7)
- Pensamiento Científico (7)
- Greeks at War: Homer at Troy (7)
- Lingua e cultura italiana: avanzata (6)
- A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior (6)
- The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (6)
- Reason and Persuasion Through Plato's Dialogues (6)
- Fake News, Facts, and Alternative Facts (6)
- Karl der Große - Pater Europae (6)
- The Rooseveltian Century (6)
- Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas (5)
- Dinosaur Paleobiology (5)
- Understanding Einstein: The Special Theory of Relativity (5)
- L'avenir de la décision : connaître et agir en complexité (5)
- Designing Cities (4)
- Problèmes métaphysiques à l'épreuve de la politique, 1943-1968 (4)
- The Kennedy Half Century (4)
- Introduction to Public Speaking (4)
- Emergence of Life (4)
- War for the Greater Middle East (4)
- Postwar Abstract Painting (3)
- Découvrir l'anthropologie (3)
- Analyzing the Universe (3)
- The Music of the Beatles (3)
- La visione del mondo della Relatività e della Meccanica Quantistica (3)
- Initiation à la programmation en Java (3)
- Formation of the Universe, Solar System, Earth and Life (3)
- History of Rock and Roll, Part One (3)
- La Commedia di Dante (3)
- Devenir entrepreneur du changement (3)
- Introduction à la philosophie de Friedrich Nietzsche (3)
- Moons of Our Solar System (3)
- Orientierung Geschichte (3)
- Paleontology: Early Vertebrate Evolution (3)
- Western Civilization: Ancient and Medieval Europe (3)
- Russian History: from Lenin to Putin (2)
- L'art des structures 1 : Câbles et arcs (2)
- Art History for Artists, Animators and Gamers (2)
- Introduction to Classical Music (2)
- Galaxies and Cosmology (2)
- The Science of Gastronomy (2)
- The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem (2)
- Søren Kierkegaard: Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity (2)
- Philosophy and the Sciences (2)
- Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication (2)
- The European Discovery of China (2)
- Our Earth: Its Climate, History, and Processes (2)
- Découvrir la science politique (2)
- Introduction à la programmation en C++ (2)
- Géopolitique de l'Europe (2)
- Gestion des aires protégées en Afrique (2)
- Lingua e letteratura in italiano (2)
- The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome (2)
- Materials Science: 10 Things Every Engineer Should Know (2)
- Highlights of Modern Astronomy (2)
- La Philanthropie : Comprendre et Agir (2)
- The Science of Religion (2)
- Advertising and Society (1)
- America Through Foreign Eyes (1)
- Superpowers of the Ancient World: the Near East (1)
- The Art of Poetry (1)
- Bemerkenswerte Menschen (1)
- Big History: From the Big Bang until Today (1)
- Controversies of British Imperialism (1)
- Age of Cathedrals (1)
- Christianity: From Persecuted Faith to Global Religion (200-1650) (1)
- Narratives of Nonviolence in the American Civil Rights Movement (1)
- Constitutional Law - The Structure of Government (1)
- Contagious: How Things Catch On (1)
- Care of Elders with Alzheimer's Disease (1)
- The American South: Its Stories, Music, and Art (1)
- Programming Mobile Services for Android Handheld Systems (1)
- Animal Behaviour (1)
- From the Big Bang to Dark Energy (1)
- Configuring the World (1)
- Introduction to Data Science (1)
- Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society (1)
- The Law of the European Union (1)
- 21st Century American Foreign Policy (1)
- Éléments de Géomatique (1)
- History and Future of Higher Education (1)
- The Age of Jefferson (1)
- The Magna Carta and its Legacy (1)
- A New History for a New China, 1700-2000 (1)
- The New Nordic Diet (1)
- A la recherche du Grand Paris (1)
- What Managers Can Learn from Great Philosophers (1)
- Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1)
- Exercise Physiology: Understanding the Athlete Within (1)
- Physique générale - mécanique (1)
- Subsistence Marketplaces (1)
- Practicing Tolerance in a Religious Society (1)
- Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life (1)
- Andy Warhol (1)
- Web Intelligence and Big Data (1)
- Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics (1)
- Learning How to Learn (1)
- Imagining Other Earths (1)
- Vital Signs: Understanding What the Body Is Telling Us (1)
- Développement durable (1)
- Dinosaur Ecosystems (1)
- The Civil War and Reconstruction (1)
- Shakespeare: On the Page and in Performance (1)
- Introducción a la genética y la evolución (1)
- Poetry in America: Whitman (1)
- Anthropology of Current World Issues (1)
- Escribir para Convencer (1)
- Découvrir le marketing (1)
- Créer et développer une startup technologique (1)
- Frontières en tous genres (1)
- Une introduction à la géographicité (1)
- Gestion et Politique de l'eau (1)
- Theater and Globalization (1)
- Handel’s Messiah and Baroque Oratorio (1)
- Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales (1)
- From Goddard to Apollo: The History of Rockets (1)
- Miracles of Human Language (1)
- Human Origins (1)
- The Computing Technology Inside Your Smartphone (1)
- Intellectual Humility (1)
- Introduction to Italian Opera (1)
- Magic in the Middle Ages (1)
- Making Sense of News (1)
- Introduction to Mathematical Thinking (1)
- Mobilité et urbanisme (1)
- Moral Foundations of Politics (1)
- Mountains 101 (1)
- The Biology of Music (1)
- Oriental Beliefs: Between Reason and Traditions (1)
- In the Night Sky: Orion (1)
- Visualizing Postwar Tokyo (1)
- The Renaissance and Baroque City (1)
- The Rise of China (1)
- Russian History: from Lenin to Putin (1)
- Социокультурные аспекты социальной робототехники (1)
- Science of Exercise (1)
- El Mediterráneo del Renacimiento a la Ilustración (1)
- Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (1)
- The World of the String Quartet (1)
- Switzerland in Europe (1)
- The Talmud: A Methodological Introduction (1)
- William Wordsworth: Poetry, People and Place (1)
- Wine Tasting: Sensory Techniques for Wine Analysis (1)
- The World of Wine (1)
Hundreds of free, self-paced university courses available:
my recommendations here
my recommendations here
Peruse my collection of 275
influential people of the past.
influential people of the past.
View My Class Notes via:




Receive My Class Notes via E-Mail:
Contact Me via E-Mail:
edward [at] tanguay.info
Notes on video lecture:
The Golden Age of the Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE)
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on December 22, 2014 (go to class or lectures)


Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
intellectuals, west, state, Wei, Documents, v, hymns, speak, feudal, donations, battle, datable, paragon, racy, written, lives, Autumn, Muye, postumously, control, Odes, bronze, arms, swallows, sky, Duke, young, philosophically, colonies, effect, wang, consolidating, Cheng, needed, evil, prerogatives, rituals, symbol, Qin, three, place, dissolution, Shang, anthropomorphic, Qin, Western, harmony, tighter, crushed, capital, lovers, Golden, hero, cities, Lu, continuity
Zhou dynasty [joh]
followed the dynasty
preceded the dynasty
1046–256 BCE
"The Western Zhou": 1046-771 BCE
looked backed to as a Age
China was settled
the world was the way it to be
Confucius (551–479 BC) used the Zhou as a blueprint of what China should be
we know a lot more about the Zhou than we do about the Shang
thousands of inscriptions
as with the Shang but much longer
precisely
know when they were buried
essentially texts that were cast in bronze
zun vessel inscription
records the words of King upon establishing his capital
so we can corroborate what we get from sources with these artifacts we are digging out of the ground which have historical text on them
transmitted texts
texts that have been passed down historically
less reliable because we don't know exactly when they are from
but more detailed and extensive
1. Book of (Book of History)
collection of speeches
historical records
about Western Zhou
some are clearly later forgeries from the Han dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) and later
2. Book of (Book of Songs)
folk songs
folk poetry that the Confucians are going to have to deal with later on
poetesses wanting to meet their out in the bushes
solemn hymns
accounts of
most of quite old based on linguistic evidence
choice of words
grammar
the beauty of these texts is we have many of them
more information
but less reliable
copied throughout the ages
major figures
King Wen (1152–1056 BC)
the cultured king
honored as the founder of the Zhou dynasty
in trying to reform the King Zhou of the Shang dynasty, he became a perfect paragon of virtue and cultured correctness
he didn't take up arms against the king, it was his son Wu who conquered the Shang following the Battle of Muye
large number of the of the Classic of Poetry are praises to the legacy of King Wen
the first epic hero of Chinese history
King Wu
the martial king
saw his father try to reform the evil King Zhow
it didn't work so he took up
seen as the actual founder of the Zhou dynasty since he was the one who defeated the Shang
then his father was declared the first king of the Zhou dynasty
of Zhou
a member of the Zhou Dynasty who played a major role in the kingdom established by his elder brother King Wu
when King Wu died, King Cheng was too to take over the kingship, so the Duke of Zhou acted as capable and loyal regent for his young nephew King Cheng by e.g. successfully suppressing a number of rebellions and placating the Shang nobility with titles and positions
a Chinese culture credited with writing the I Ching and the Book of Poetry, establishing the Rites of Zhou, and creating the yayue of Chinese classical music
a of loyalty and wisdom
as soon as King Cheng was old enough to take over, he graciously gave the throne to the son of his brother
in Chinese culture he is seen as the of what a wise ruler and minister should be
Zhou military expansion
homeland was where the River continues on from the Yellow River
fought their way to the east and took over the Shang
their goal was the Anyang, the capital of the Chang
1045 BCE decisive battle happened at
take over the Yellow River valley
this story gets corroborated by the archeological record
Li gui [lee GWAY] vessel
bronze
made by Li, a follower of King Wu [oo]
records how King Wu performed a divination, then King Zhow of the Shang
religious continuity
although the Zhou conquered the Shang, they were very to identify with them politically and religiously
left their structures in tact and just took over their
took over religious systems
Zhou retained Shang Di
tian [twen]
is a supreme god and deity in China's traditional religions
standard translation is "Heaven", the "Universe", the "Great All".
tien is often drawn as a large person
an anthropomorphic being
it's often translated as the sky, but it's not a
it's not a place you go to after you die like the Christian heaven
it's heaven as a being, an being who is up there somewhere striding around in a very vague way
we never directly see heaven, it doesn't or communicate
but heaven's up there having some kind of on the world
when the Zhou conquered the Shang, they were very keen on claiming a with the Shang religious system
so in the same way Shangdi was, Tien becomes the supreme being in charge of everything that humans can't
politics
the Zhou took over the Yellow River Valley
but maintained their key cities of power in the
but controlled the whole central plain area
established their kins people and important generals as rules in these various areas, and states which made up the former realm of the Shang
these states will become independent states in the Eastern Zhou Period
feudalism
power devolved to lords who
paid them tribute
paid to the king
could be called up into
was a bit different
was more of a centralized state because of signs of a control than feudalism in Western Europe
king had representatives in the courts of these state rulers
beginnings of centralized bureaucracy
we don't get a fully centralized state until the dynasty (211-206 BCE)
771 BCE: end of Western Zhou dynasty
King You [yoh] (781-771 BCE)
killed by vassals allied with non-Zhou tribes
son King Ping (770-720 BCE)
force to flee east to Chengzhou, present-day Luoyang
moved the
marks the beginning of the Eastern Zhou
Confucius and others look back to the Western Zhou as a golden age of , peace and wise rulership
once the capital was sacked and king was forced to move east and set up a new capital, things go downhill fairly rapidly
the regional lords are now becoming more and more de facto, independent rulers
the colonies and domains become independent states
these lesser rulers began to take on that only the Zhou kings were allowed to have
in the later part of the Eastern Zhou period, they even begin to adopt the name " " or "king" for themselves
something that horrified Confucius
Eastern Zhou (771-221 BCE)
Spring and (770-481 BCE)
covered by the court history of the state of
the beginning of the of China
the rise of the independent states
Confucius (551-479 BCE)
Warring States (481-221 BCE)
begins when the Zhou kings officially recognize the partitions of the state of Jin
Jin was being carved up by rival ministers
they conceded that they had independent states and thus were in the "warring states period"
this is where "all the action is happening "
eventually a state in the West comes and up all the other states and unifies China
independent states that are fighting for their
changes sociologically
a whole new class of freelance
Vocabulary:
paragon, n. a person or thing regarded as a perfect example of a particular quality ⇒ "He became a perfect paragon of virtue and cultured correctness." |
remonstrate, v. make a forcefully reproachful protest ⇒ "He did not take up arms against the evil king, he tried to remonstrate with him." |
yayue, n. a form of Chinese classical music that was performed at imperial courts ⇒ "The Duke of Zhou established the Rites of Zhou and created the yayue of Chinese classical music." |
conflate, v. to bring together, to meld, to fuse ⇒ "The Zhou retain Shang Di, but conflate, and eventually replace it with what appears to be the tribal Zhou god tian." |
People:
![]() |
######################### (1152-1056 BC) Honored as the founder of the Zhou dynasty
|
![]() |
######################### (1152-1056 BC) A member of the Zhou Dynasty who played a major role in consolidating the kingdom established by his elder brother King Wu
|
Spelling Corrections:
anthropormorphic ⇒ anthropomorphic
perogatives ⇒ prerogatives
disolution ⇒ dissolution
Ideas and Concepts:
On the ontology of Tiān, via tonight's Ancient Chinese Thought class:
"Tiān is one of the oldest Chinese terms for the cosmos and its source, a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion.
Tiān is the supreme god and a sky deity whose standard translation is "Heaven", "Universe", or "Great All". Tiān is often drawn as a large person, an anthropomorphic being, and is often translated as "sky", yet it's not a place in the sense of a place you go to after you die like the Christian heaven.
Tiān is heaven as a being, an anthropomorphic being who is up there somewhere striding around in a very vague way. We never directly see Tiān, it doesn't speak or communicate in any way, but it is up there having some kind of effect on the world.
When the Zhou conquered the Shang, they were very keen on claiming a continuity with the Shang religious system, and so in the same way as Shangdi, Tiān became the supreme being in charge of everything that humans can't control.
Heaven worship, or the worship of Tiān, was an orthodox state religion of China of the Qing dynasty up until the 20th century."
"Tiān is one of the oldest Chinese terms for the cosmos and its source, a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion.
Tiān is the supreme god and a sky deity whose standard translation is "Heaven", "Universe", or "Great All". Tiān is often drawn as a large person, an anthropomorphic being, and is often translated as "sky", yet it's not a place in the sense of a place you go to after you die like the Christian heaven.
Tiān is heaven as a being, an anthropomorphic being who is up there somewhere striding around in a very vague way. We never directly see Tiān, it doesn't speak or communicate in any way, but it is up there having some kind of effect on the world.
When the Zhou conquered the Shang, they were very keen on claiming a continuity with the Shang religious system, and so in the same way as Shangdi, Tiān became the supreme being in charge of everything that humans can't control.
Heaven worship, or the worship of Tiān, was an orthodox state religion of China of the Qing dynasty up until the 20th century."