Nicola Di Cosmo received his Ph.D. from the Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies (now Central Eurasian Studies) at Indiana University in 1991, and held research and teaching positions at the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, and the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) before joining the Institute for Advanced Study in 2003. His main field of research is the history of the relations between China and Inner Asia from prehistory to the modern period. Within that broad area he has published on the early history of China's relations with steppe nomads (e.g., Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Powers in East Asian History, 2002) and on Mongol and Manchu history (e.g., Manchu-Mongol Relations on the Eve of the Qing Conquest, 2003), and he has edited several books, including Military Culture in Imperial China, 2009, and The Cambridge History of Inner Asia, 2009. He is currently working on questions of climate change at the time of the Mongol empire, the political thought of the early Manchus, and commercial relations in northeast Asia on the eve of the Qing conquest.

Indiana University, Ph.D. 1991; University of Cambridge, Research Fellow 1989–92; Indiana University, Visiting Lecturer and Rockefeller Fellow 1992–93; Harvard University, Assistant Professor 1993–97, Associate Professor 1998–99; University of Canterbury, Senior Lecturer 1999–2003; Institute for Advanced Study, Member 1999, Luce Foundation Professor in East Asian Studies 2003–

This comprehensive history of the northern frontier of China through the first millennium B.C. details the formation of two increasingly distinct cultural areas: the sedentary Chinese and the northern nomads. Nicola Di Cosmo explores the tensions existing between these two worlds as they became progressively more polarized, with the eventual creation of the nomadic Hsiung-nu empire in the north, and of the Chinese empire in the south. Di Cosmo investigates the origins of the antagonism between early China and its "barbarian" neighbors.

Table of contents

Introduction

Part I:

1. The Steppe Highway: the rise of Pastoral Nomadism as a Eurasian phenomenon;

2. Bronze, Iron and Gold: the evolution of nomadic cultures on the Northern frontier of China

Part II:

3. Beasts and birds: the historical context of early Chinese perceptions of northern peoples;

4. Walls and horses: the beginning of historical contacts between horse-riding Nomads and Chinese states

Part III:

5. Those who draw the bow: the rise of the Hsiung-nu Nomadic Empire and the political unification of the Nomads;

6. >From peace to war: China's shift from appeasement to military engagement

Part IV.

7. In search of grass and water: ethnography and history of the North in the Historian's Records;

8. Taming the North: the rationalization of the nomads in Ssu-ma Ch'ien's historical thought;

Conclusion.