Song Ceramics

This book looks at Song ceramics - one of the high points in China's cultural production - in terms of their role in Song society at a time of widespread economic change and technological innovation. Following an introduction surveying the exceptional quality and range of wares, separate chapters deal with production (technology, industrial scale and environmental issues); circulation (Japan to Africa, and within China, along with the people engaged in it); consumption by the general populace; consumption among writers and officials; use in temples and palaces; collecting since AD1100. Older and more recent books on Song ceramics deal only with kiln production, types and later collecting. This book will be the first to consider ceramics as part of the wider context of the Song dynasty and alongside recent advances in scholarship on Song economics, urban life and social change.