The era of the Three Kingdoms was a time of chaotic wars. The times created heroes, and the chaotic times were the best stage for heroes to display their talents. The era of the Three Kingdoms was destined to be an era where heroes emerged.

This is the first book-length treatment in English of Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi), often regarded as China's first great classical novel. Set in the historical period of the disunion (220–280 AD), Three Kingdoms fuses history and popular tradition to create a sweeping epic of heroism and political ambition. The essays in this volume explore the multifarious connections between Three Kingdoms and Chinese culture from a variety of disciplines, including history, literature, philosophy, art history, theater, cultural studies, and communications, demonstrating the diversity of backgrounds against which this novel can be studied. Some of the most memorable episodes and figures in Chinese literature appear within its pages, and Three Kingdoms has had a profound influence on personal, social, and political behavior, even language usage, in the daily life of people in China today. The novel has inspired countless works of theater and art, and, more recently, has been the source for movies and a television series. Long popular in other countries of East Asia, such as Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, Three Kingdoms has also been introduced to younger generations around the globe through a series of extremely popular computer games. This study helps create a better understanding of the work's unique place in Chinese culture.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a classic historical novel of enormous influence, is considered to be one of the four great Chinese classic novels. Written by Luo Guanzhong, a scholar who lived in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties, it chronicled the efforts of the Wei, Shu, and Wu kingdoms to reunite the empire at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. This fascinating period in Chinese history inspired many other authors, poets, artists, and playwrights, including Luo Guanzhong's novel, which is a work of enduring historical and literary impact and beauty. Guan Yu, the hero, has had a significant impact on Chinese culture and the arts. That influence has spread to Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and to all Chinese communities in the world. Guan Yu is well respected and worshiped in Taoism, Buddhism, Shintoism, and Caodaiism. He has also influenced modern entertainment and mass media as well, including television, video games, Manga, and more. The study and critical interpretation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Guan Yu has captivated scholars, artists, and writers for centuries. Now, modern-day scholar and collector Frankie KT Neo offers the best of his research. Readers are invited to a detailed tour of his extensive collection of antiques and other artifacts commemorating Three Kingdoms and its hero, Guan Yu. His collection, called the Sanfen Tang Collection, currently features more than a thousand pieces, many of which are detailed within.

This book is a comparative exploration of the impact of a celebrated Chinese historical novel, the Sanguozhi yanyi (Three Kingdoms) on the popular culture of Korea since its dissemination in the sixteenth century. It elucidates not only the reception of Chinese fiction in Chosŏn Korea (1392–1910), but also the fascinating ways in which this particular story lives on in modern Korea. The author specifically explores the dissemination, adaptations, and translations of the work to elucidate how Three Kingdoms has spoken to Korean readers. In short, this book shows how a quintessentially Chinese work equally developed into a Korean work.

“A material epic with an astonishing fidelity to history."—New York Times Book Review Three Kingdoms tells the story of the fateful last reign of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 220), when the Chinese empire was divided into three warring kingdoms. Writing some twelve hundred years later, the Ming author Luo Guanzhong drew on histories, dramas, and poems portraying the crisis to fashion a sophisticated, compelling narrative that has become the Chinese national epic. This abridged edition captures the novel's intimate and unsparing view of how power is wielded, how diplomacy is conducted, and how wars are planned and fought. As important for Chinese culture as the Homeric epics have been for the West, this Ming dynasty masterpiece continues to be widely influential in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam and remains a great work of world literature.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a classic historical novel of enormous influence, is considered to be one of the four great Chinese classic novels. Written by Luo Guanzhong, a scholar who lived in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties, it chronicled the efforts of the Wei, Shu, and Wu kingdoms to reunite the empire at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. This fascinating period in Chinese history inspired many other authors, poets, artists, and playwrights, including Luo Guanzhong's novel, which is a work of enduring historical and literary impact and beauty. Guan Yu, the hero, has had a significant impact on Chinese culture and the arts. That influence has spread to Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and to all Chinese communities in the world. Guan Yu is well respected and worshiped in Taoism, Buddhism, Shintoism, and Caodaiism. He has also influenced modern entertainment and mass media as well, including television, video games, Manga, and more. The study and critical interpretation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Guan Yu has captivated scholars, artists, and writers for centuries. Now, modern-day scholar and collector Frankie KT Neo offers the best of his research. Readers are invited to a detailed tour of his extensive collection of antiques and other artifacts commemorating Three Kingdoms and its hero, Guan Yu. His collection, called the Sanfen Tang Collection, currently features more than a thousand pieces, many of which are detailed within.

A survey of Chinese history told through the lens of biographies on China's most colorful and famous personalities.

Game Studies is a rapidly growing area of contemporary scholarship, yet volumes in the area have tended to focus on more general issues. With Playing with the Past, game studies is taken to the next level by offering a specific and detailed analysis of one area of digital game play -- the representation of history. The collection focuses on the ways in which gamers engage with, play with, recreate, subvert, reverse and direct the historical past, and what effect this has on the ways in which we go about constructing the present or imagining a future. What can World War Two strategy games teach us about the reality of this complex and multifaceted period? Do the possibilities of playing with the past change the way we understand history? If we embody a colonialist's perspective to conquer 'primitive' tribes in Colonization, does this privilege a distinct way of viewing history as benevolent intervention over imperialist expansion? The fusion of these two fields allows the editors to pose new questions about the ways in which gamers interact with their game worlds. Drawing these threads together, the collection concludes by asking whether digital games - which represent history or historical change - alter the way we, today, understand history itself.

With the subjugation of the Principality of Amidonia accomplished, Souma, the provisional king, begins the post-war cleanup process with his next move, Project Lorelei. It is an entertainment program that uses the Jewel Voice Broadcast. It was originally only thought that this program would amuse the people of the Kingdom, but it is being broadcast in occupied Van, too. What does Souma hope to accomplish with that...?! Then, when Souma takes some time off to rest in the capital of Amidonia, Van, with Juna and Tomoe, he encounters Jeanne Euphoria, the younger sister of the Empress of the Gran Chaos Empire. What sort of “negotiation” does the “realistic” Jeanne, who supports her idealistic sister, have in store for Souma...?! The revolutionary transferred-to-another-world administrative fantasy is now on its third volume!

The Dictionary of Oriental Literatures fills a long-felt gap in Western literature by presenting a concise summary, in three volumes and about 2000 articles, of practically all the literatures of Asia and North Africa. The first volume describes the Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Korean and Mongolian literatures; the second covers the area of South and South-East Asia, comprising, besides all literatures of India and Pakistan, those of Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines; and the third is devoted to the numerous literatures of West Asia and North Africa. including on the one hand the literatures of the ancient Near East and Egypt, and on the other hand those of Central Asia and the Caucasus, of Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and of the various Arab countries including Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. The majority of entries give information about the life and work of the individual writers and poets of the classical, medieval and modern periods of the literatures included and also attempt to evaluate their writings from the historical and aesthetic point of view. The remaining articles describe literary terms, genres, forms, schools, movements etc. The Dictionary has been prepared by the Oriental Institute in Prague under the supervision of a Advisory Editorial Board of European and American scholars of international reputation and is unique in that it is the fruit of the collaboration of over 150 orientalists from many parts of the world. Contents include: Volume I East Asia: The Far East, including Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Korean and Mongolian literatures. Volume II South and South-East Asia: Ancient Indian, Assamese, Baluchi, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Indian literature in English, Indo-Persian, Kannada, Kashmiri, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Panjabi, Pashto, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, Sinhalese, Nepali, Burmese, Thai, Cambodian, Malay and Indonesian, Javanese, Vietnamese and Philippines literatures. Volume III West Asia and North Africa: The Near East and Egypt, Central Asia and the Caucasus, Turkish, Persian, Afghan, Kurd and Arabic literatures, covering all the Arab states from Iraq in the East to Algeria in the West.