Excerpt from The Dawn of Chinese Civilization: Papers of the Literary Department of the American Women's Club In presenting this. The second series of papers published by the Literary Department, the impelling motive is again the desire to retain in permanent form the results of the season's study. The former series, Arts and Art Crafts, of Ancient China, which follows the idea maintained in the Year Book of the American Woman's Club of 1920-21, includes papers on painters and paintings of the Tang, Sung and Ming dynasties and the allied crafts together with the porcelains of these periods. In addition to the papers on art, are historical sketches of the Emperors under whose royal patronage the fine arts were encouraged and developed. Nor are the religious phases overlooked, for the art of China, like all its cultural development is so closely linked With its religious traditions that it is not possible to consider one without the other. Historical descriptions of the three most sacred places in China - Tai-shan, Omei-shan and Puto-shan furnish excellent examples of the significance of the religious influences. The papers in the present publication are chiefly con cerned with history and literature from the earliest dawn of civilization down through the glorious period of the T'angs. Beginning with the legendary rulers, the golden age of Yao and Shun, the growing sense of law and beauty is traced through the Hsia and Shang dynasties when China was begin ning to emerge from its pastoral state into the consciousness of self expressions; this was the foundation of one of the greatest civilizations the world was yet to know. Later the influence of Feudalism, with its many ramifications, is clearly set forth until the numerous states are brought together in the formal ritualism of the Chow dynasty, only to be submerged by the conquering state of Ch'in, giving to the Hans a splendid heritage upon which to build their artistic kingdom. However, it was but history repeating itself, for following the decadence of the Han civilization came the most romantic period of Chinese history - the Period of the Three Kingdoms - which was entirely blotted out by that dreadful chaos of the Dark Ages. Out of this chaos was to come the most glorious civilization of the Tang The Golden Age of Art and Literature. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.