A Companion to Ancient History,Blackwell Companions to the Ancient Worm （Yan Shaoxiang）.

I am wondering if we should have more Companions in ancient history in the 21^st century since we already have numerous companions from the Cambridge Companions and Brill Companions, both series very focused and up to date. The Edinburgh Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome （2006） contains a variety of information about the classical world which makes it a useful handbook, and also in Blackwell＇s Companions, quite a few Companions have appeared since the new century, covering ancient history. So far as this paper is concerned, we may list the Companions to the Ancient Near East, Archaic Greece, the Classical Greek World, the Hellenistic World, the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, Late Antiquity, the Roman Army, and Julius Caesar, all of which combined together cover almost every historical stage of ancient history chronologically. Is there any further space left for a Comnanion to Ancient History？     

LISTENING TO THE STEPS OF HALF A CENTURY OF DEMOCRACY IN TIBET

正From 1965 to 2015,the system of the People's Congress has been officially implemented for 50 years in Tibet.For half a century,with the escort of democracy and rule by law backed by a series of national special preferential policies,people of all ethnicities in Tibet have made great achievements through their own unremitting efforts.     

DENG DONG,MR. NICE OF YUSHU

During our talk with Danke, he suggested enthusiastically that we interview another person： ＂You＇ve got to talk to him. He＇s been working tirelessly in Yushu for quite a few years, planning the new Yushu and new projects for it. Danke was talking about Deng Dong, Director of the Urban Planning and Design Institute of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design （CAUPD）. The locals have given him the nickname ＂Mr. Nice of Yushu＇.     

Tibetan Musician Menam Dorje

e are all products of our times. Everyone＇s life story is a history of his Wtimes and every Tibetan has a life story worth telling. The 20th century was probably the most eventful century in the history of our blue planet. Many historic events came thick and fast. For Tibet, 1951 was amassive year.     

Marks,Robert B., China.Its Environment and History

In recent years foreign scholars have produced major studies of China＇s environmental history, or its environment and history. Most seem to focus on various periods and regions. Such an approach to China＇s environmental history is understandable and reasonable, since writing a synthesis of this history is no easy task： China has both a variety of ecosystems ranging from alpine mountains to tropical forests, and a long history with the longest unbroken written record of all the world＇s civilizations. But Robert B. Marks,     

ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNIFIED STATE IN ANCIENT EGYPT

The annalist Manetho, a native Egyptian scholar-priest who lived in the 3^rd century BC during the reign of Ptolemy II （285-246 BC）, wrote a history of Egypt in Greek and divided the history of ancient Egypt into 30 （or 31） dynasties. He began with the unification of Egypt, making a Thinite king of Upper Egypt, whom he knows as Menes, the founder of the First Dynasty （ca.3100-2890 BC）. Menes is said to have built his capital at the junction of Upper and Lower Egypt, in a strategical key position. The new capital was called the ＂White Wall＂, it became later known as Memphis. There a great temple was built, dedicated to the god Ptah, who remained the patron deity of the city throughout its long history. Up to now no monuments of the First Dynasty have been found that would bear the name of Menes. Therefore, modem archaeologists hold that Menes should be identified with Narmer, the king whose relics have been unearthed at Hierakonpolis. Some scholars even doubt that Menes was a true historical figure, after all.     

Chinese Socialism as Vernacular Cosmopolitanism

This paper follows the life of an idea, a fundamental concept in modern Chinese intellectual life： socialism. It explores this idea as an alternative form of Chinese cosmopolitanism, drawing from Pheng Cheah＇s identification of two kinds of Chinese cosmopolitanism： mercantile and revolutionary. If part of what we mean by cosmopolitanism is the local use of an external, or international, or otherwise ＂independent＂ （relative to local power and practice） ideology or discourse to promote an agent＇s sense of social good at home and connection to the world, then the ways that socialist thought, ideology and praxis have been employed in China in the twentieth century constitute one such strain of cosmopolitanism. Shehuizhuyi （socialism） meant related but significantly different things to Chinese in the twentieth century. This essay argues that Chinese socialism can be viewed as a version of vernacular cosmopolitanism through two examples： Wang Shiwei in the 1940s and Deng Tuo in the 1960s, as well as the discourse of Pan-Asianism before and after the Mao era. Chinese socialism was as much a terrain of debate and contestation about what it means to be ＂Chinese and modern＂ as it was a shared vocabulary and set of aspirations. All along it has been able to play the role of cosmopolitan thought for some influential Chinese thinkers and doers--connecting China to the world in order to pursue universal values.     

Wu Jen-shu,Jibian liangmin： ehuantong Zhongguo chengshi qunzhong jiti xingdong zhi fenxi （Good Citizens Turning Rebel： Analyses of Urban Mass Collective Actions in Traditional China）

Scholars have long been interested in rebellions and revolution in Chinese history The interest has a real-world basis： China＇s long and turbulent past is a rich minefor academic study, and the country＇s seemingly endless conflicts and struggles in recent centuries give such study relevance to reality. For obvious reasons, most studies of Chinese rebellions and revolutions focus on rural society. Wu Jen-shu＇s Jibian liangmin is among relatively few works that devote attention to public, and often violent, expressions of displeasure in Chinese cities and towns before modern times.     

Iodel of Library Training Prograrm at the Tibet Library

Librarianship in Tibet has changed gradually through the years. Its development has been closely tied to the movement of history, economics, and culture in Tibet. There are many issues that have become obstacles in the development of Tibetan libraries. Foremost among these issues is the shortage of professionally trained librarians. This paper discusses the history of Tibetan libraries, and explores the situation of the library and information science （LIS） profession in Tibet. Finally, through analysis of current situations and problems, this paper discusses a model of a library training program at the Tibet library to provide variety and appropriate continuing education for librarians in Tibet.     

Ebrey,Patricia Buckley,Emperor Huizong

Despite the splendor and historical significance of Huizong＇s reign （r. 1100-26） in Song history, little research has been done on this period in recent years. Chinese scholarship provides several interesting biographies of Huizong and a few monographs about his reign, mostly literary, if not fictive.     

Editors' Note

As FHC enters a new year,we are very pleased to report on the progress the journal has made in the past year.FHC has published articles on a wide range of topics on Chinese history,featuring a variety of approaches.Whether the methodology was mainstream or cutting edge,all have inspired new ways of conceptualizing Chinese history.In addition to one issue that examined the relationships between the Qing government and its neighbor countries and border areas,FHC launched three forums in the past year.One forum asked how we might,through the lens of critical theory,Marxism,and novel approaches to 20th century capitalism,reinterpret 20th century China.Another forum discussed issues of pregnancy,childrearing,and wedding ceremonies to explore how intellectuals re-conceptualized family management by combining traditional expectations with imported,scientific concepts and practices and how scholars,educators,journalists and officials shifted relationships between Chinese families and the state.The final forum focused on state-building and the transformation of politics,society,economy,and culture under Communist rule in the 1950s and early 1960s.     

Uspensky,Vladimir L., Tibetskiy Buddizm v Pekine （Tibetan Buddhism in Beijing）

The new book by Vladimir Uspensky （alternatively, Uspenskiy）, Professor and Chair of the Department of Mongolian and Tibetan Studies, Faculty of Asian and African Studies of Saint Petersburg State University （Russia）, deals with various aspects in the history of Tibetan Buddhism in Beijing; the time is mainly the period from the middle seventeenth to the early twentieth century. During the reign of the Qing dynasty, the ruling class, namely Manchu and Mongolian nobility, patronized Tibetan Buddhism. This aspect of Qing history is studied too little in Chinese and foreign works, and Uspensky＇s book fills this lacuna. One can see that the author successfully achieved his aim, as he has drawn a vivid picture of institutions and cultural activity among Tibetan Buddhists in Beijing.     

REVIEWS

With the development of the women's movement and the impact of feminism,a great number of books dealing with Greek and Roman Women have been published. All of these books tried to trace the history of women in order to break the mainstream classical scholarship, which paid little attention to women. Among them Arethusa's Women in Antiquity (1973) shows us the separate and individual study in ancient women; Sarah B. Pomeroy's Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves:Women in Classical Antiquity (1975) aims to write a social history of women through the centuries in the Greek and Roman worlds;     

Guo XIA, IHAC

R.J. Rhodes‘s reader focuses on the political institutions, political activity, history and nature of Athenian democracy and introduces some of the best British,American, German, and French scholarship on its origins, theory, and practice. The chapters of this book are grouped according to the kind of topic investigated, and variety of approaches will be found in each part of the book. Part I is devoted to political institutions, with chapters on Athenian citizenship (Chapter 1),     

Li,Huaiyin, Reinventing Modern China： Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing

Li Huaiyin＇s new book deals with the dialectic and competing processes ofwriting the history of ＂modem China＂ in China during the past century. Li presents the writing of history as a literary genre that has produced multiple narratives in different periods, narratives that corresponded to or were instigated by particular socio-political （especially political） circumstances of the protagonists of his story. In general, Li depicts these narratives as ＂romantic,＂ ＂optimistic,＂ or ＂pessimistic,＂ based on two major conflicting paradigms （or ＂grand narratives＂--Li often uses ＂narrative＂ and ＂paradigm＂ interchangeably）： ＂modernization＂ and ＂revolutionary.＂     

Millennium Celebrations of King Gesar

King Gesar has been circulating among Tibetans for some 1,000 years or more.The longest epic in the world, passed down through the ages in the oral form, has even drawn the concern of the international community. UNESCO has approved activities in honor of the millennium of the epic. Public opinion hails this as a major event important for the protection of traditional Tibetan culture and the promotion of various ethnic groups in the world.The epic is a concentration of ancient tales, legends, sayings, and various kinds of folk arts. Thus far, 150 volumes have been located; they contain some 1.5 milion lines.     

＂Bankers Are Stingy？＂ Re-Examining Stock Exchanges and Public Debt in Prewar Shanghai （1920s-1930s）

This review article surveys new studies of China＇s economy in the early twentieth century that have been published in both China and the West. It analyses the nuances that we find in these recently published studies and how those might improve our conventional understanding of the era, with particular emphasis on the link between fiscal revenue and stock-exchanges. First, a detailed introduction treats the evolution, beginning in the nineteenth century, of Shanghai＇s segmented stock exchanges in the context of wider global currents. Section two reprises the still common notion that heavy domestic borrowing by the Nationalist （Kuornintang, or GMD） government in the 1920s-1930s forestalled industrialization. Section three discusses at length the degree to which Chinese banks in that period may be seen as merely a GMD conduit of borrowing. Chinese banks were probably more conducive to Shanghai＇s industrialization than is usually acknowledged, and they also played a key role in stabilizing China＇s monetary environment well beyond their perceived focus on managing public debt. But more evidence needs to come to light, and this article sets out the areas in which future research might advance our knowledge. The conclusion will underscore how the various findings of scholars might, as a whole, remould current conceptions.     

Henriot,Christian.Scythe and the City.A Social History of Death in Shanghai

Much has been written on Chinese death and funerary culture by anthropologists—far less by historians.This book is therefore a much-welcome attempt to fill this gap in the field of Chinese modem history.Its chronological scope encompasses one century:from the 1860s to the eve of the Cultural Revolution,but it is clearly more focused on the twentieth century due to the availability of a much greater amount of source materials from that period.     

Pursuing the Good,Ethics and Metaphysics in Plato s Republic

‘Pursuing the good’ is an old subject in both social history of ancient Greece and Greek philosophy studies. There is hardly anything new when we talk about virtue or morality in the time of Plato and Aristotle. In the area of Greek history, many books and articles on or relevant to that