(Lucy) The civil service examinations taken by the bureaucrats and administrators of imperial China were not merely academic. They also served as social rites of passage. Moreover, they were designed to test the moral aptitudes of test-takers for a lifetime of upholding Confucian ideals. Naturally, they were a source of individual stress, as well as a key part of imperial power and authority for centuries, outlasting several dynasties. This episode looks at the roles civil service examinations played in premodern China, and the mythos that grew around them.
History for Halloween V
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The Legend of Pope Joan
Escape from Slavery: The Story of Mary and Emily Edmonson
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The Blazing World of Lady Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
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The Papal Pornocracy
Censorship in Reformation England
Jewish Fighters of Medieval Europe
How to Be a Beguine
Back of Every Great Work: The Story of Emily Warren Roebling
Napoleon Bonaparte's Near-Fatal Christmas
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