This is the most extensive study of Chin dynasty history in any language. It demonstrates the importance of cultural developments in North China under the Chin (1115-1234). Only since the 1960s has the study of the Jurchen Chin gradually become a subfield of academic inquiry, with particularly significant strides having been made since the late 1980s. This present volume is the first in any language to demonstrate the importance of cultural developments under the Chin both for their continuation of earlier northern patterns and for their own contributions in such areas as literature, art, Confucian thought, and Buddhist and Taoist religious practices. As Herbert Franke observes in his Foreword: "It is now possible to perceive more clearly the contours of a distinctly northern cultural identity in the 12th and 13th centuries, a period that can henceforth no longer be regarded as an unproductive transitional phase between Sung and Yüan." "I believe that this multifaceted approach to the Chin ultimately illuminates a dim and undervalued segment of Chinese cultural history and that this book will contribute significantly to Sinology overall." ― Cynthia Ning, University of Hawaii Hoyt Cleveland Tillman is Professor of History at Arizona State University, where he is also on the faculty of the Humanities Graduate Program, as well as a member of the Center for Asian Studies and the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He is the author of Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi's Ascendancy , and Utilitarian Confucianism: Ch'en Liang's Challenge to Chu His . Stephen H. West is Professor of East Asian Languages at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Vaudeville and Narrative: Aspects of Chin Literature , and co-author of Chinese Theater from 1100-1450: A Source Book and The Moon and the Zither: Wang Shifu's Story of the Western Wing .