" It is a pioneering collection of works all aimed at providing alternative narratives that deviate from official histories through the use of non-archival sources. It provides three frameworks that will guide readers on where to look for non-archival sources and how to use and interpret these sources. By bringing together and systematising the use of non-archival sources of different nature, it demonstrates commonality between visual materials, stelae, recovered texts, private papers, and oral history as means to restoring narratives that existed in the margins of dominant histories. " For a long time, silk, tea, sinocentrism, and eurocentrism made up a big patch of East Asian history. Simultaneously deviating from and complicating these tags, this edited volume reconstructs narratives from the periphery and considers marginal voices located beyond official archives as the centre of East Asian history. The lives of the Japanese Buddhist monks, Eastern Han local governors, Confucian scholars, Chinese coolies, Shanghainese tailors, Macau joss-stick makers, Hong Kong locals, and Cantonese working-class musicians featured in this collection provide us with a glimpse of how East Asias inhabitants braved, with versatility, the ripples of political centralization, cross-border movement, foreign imperialism, nationalism, and globalism that sprouted locally and universally. Demonstrating the rich texture of sources discovered through non-official pathways, the ten essays in this volume ultimately reveal the timeless interconnectedness of East Asia and the complex, non-uniform worldviews of its inhabitants.
Demonstrating the rich texture of sources discovered through non-official pathways, the ten essays in this volume ultimately reveal the timeless interconnectedness of East Asia and the complex, non-uniform worldviews of its inhabitants.
