China's Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty by Mark Edward Lewis

I'm winding down on this book, part three in a series of six, in the effort to speed up my study of China in advance of our planned trip in the Fall of 2027.

Although a bit dry in writing style, I appreciate the broad approach of each book in this series, covering both the military/political and the cultural history of each dynasty.

I particularly like the treatments of both city and rural life in China as separate domains.

I'm using this series to form a broad outline of imperial China from a macro level before diving deeper into specific areas of interest that cut across dynasties.

I'm particularly interested to study the primary religions of China.  I've studied Buddhism at some length, but very little on Confucianism, and virtually nothing on Daoism.

The Tang, considered a highwater mark in the cultural history of China, along with its cosmopolitanism, as reflected in the book's title, are worth of deeper exploration on its own.

Much, much more reading to come on China over the next 18 months.