After the collapse of the Han dynasty in the third century CE, China divided along a north-south line. Mark Lewis traces the changes that both underlay and resulted from this split in a period that saw the geographic redefinition of China, more engagement with the outside world, significant changes to family life, developments in the literary and social arenas, and the introduction of new religions.

The Yangzi River valley arose as the rice-producing center of the country. Literature moved beyond the court and capital to depict local culture, and newly emerging social spaces included the garden, temple, salon, and country villa. The growth of self-defined genteel families expanded the notion of the elite, moving it away from the traditional great Han families identified mostly by material wealth. Trailing the rebel movements that toppled the Han, the new faiths of Daoism and Buddhism altered every aspect of life, including the state, kinship structures, and the economy.

By the time China was reunited by the Sui dynasty in 589 ce, the elite had been drawn into the state order, and imperial power had assumed a more transcendent nature. The Chinese were incorporated into a new world system in which they exchanged goods and ideas with states that shared a common Buddhist religion. The centuries between the Han and the Tang thus had a profound and permanent impact on the Chinese world.

Contents
Introduction
Chapter One	The Geography of the Northern and Southern Dynasties
Chapter Two	The Rise of the Great Families
Chapter Three	Military Dynasticism in the Northern and Southern Dynasties
Chapter Four	Cities in the Northern and Southern Dynasties
Chapter Five	Rural Society in the Northern and Southern Dynasties
Chapter Six	China and the Outside World in the Northern and Southern Dynasties
Chapter Seven	Kinship in the Northern and Southern Dynasties
Chapter Eight	Institutional Religions in the Northern and Southern Dynasties
Chapter Nine	The Literary Field of the Northern and Southern Dynasties
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography