Forbidden City

The Forbidden City by Geremie R Barme, 191 pages

"The Forbidden City."  The very name is surrounded with an aura of power and mystery.  It summons up shadowy thoughts of secret splendors and hidden harems, as well as more concrete ideas about faceless tyranny and an exotic East.  As Geremie Barme explains in his historical guide, the Forbidden City has borne all these meanings, and a great many others besides.  Built in the 15th century by the native Ming dynasty but almost entirely rebuilt piecemeal, like Jason's ship, by the Qing conquerors, the Forbidden City was intended as a microcosm of both the Middle Kingdom and the universe as a whole, designed both to reflect and reinforce the cosmic harmonies among men and within nature, on earth and in the heavens.  Indeed, the history of the Forbidden City is the history of modern China writ small.

Part of Harvard's "Wonders of the World" series, The Forbidden City is both entertaining and enlightening.  Barme is particularly skillful at orienting his readers both spatially and temporally.