"This is a fascinating portrait of a man who contrived in his way to be a good ruler and was to die of natural causes in an age when life was for most in China nasty, brutish and all too short, and who, moreover, by instituting the preservation of the Chi

"In this evocative and fascinating study of the Later Tang emperor Mingzong, Richard Davis has brilliantly illuminated a little known and even less understood period of Chinese history, the interval between the unified Tang empire and the Song dynasty whe

"The political history of the early tenth century is not for the faint of heart. Shatuo Turks, Kitans, and Han Chinese, from aspirants to the throne, to surrogate sons, generals, mutineers, and courtiers were all maneuvering for advantage as circumstances

Richard L. Davis is chair professor of history and dean of the Faculty of Arts at Lingnan University, Foundation Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities, and president of Song Historians for the Lingnan Region.