A History of China
Contents
SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE
SERIES EDITOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LIST OF MAPS
A NOTE ON ROMANIZATION
PART I: China among “Barbarians”
[1] EARLY HISTORY, TO 1027 BCE
LAND AND SETTLEMENT
EARLY MANKIND
AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION IN THE NEOLITHIC ERA
XIA: THE FIRST DYNASTY?
THE SHANG AND THE ORIGINS OF CHINESE CIVILIZATION
ORACLE BONES
RITUAL OBJECTS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES
SHANG SOCIETY
NOTES
FURTHER READING
[2] CLASSICAL CHINA, 1027–256 BCE
“FEUDALISM”?
CHANGES IN SOCIAL STRUCTURE
POLITICAL INSTABILITY IN THE EASTERN ZHOU
TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE ECONOMY
HUNDRED SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT
DAOISM
POPULAR RELIGIONS
CONFUCIANISM
MOHISM
LEGALISM
BOOK OF ODES AND BOOK OF DOCUMENTS
SECULARIZATION OF ARTS
NOTES
FURTHER READING
[3] THE FIRST CHINESE EMPIRES, 221 BCE–220 CE
DEVELOPMENT OF THE QIN STATE
QIN ACHIEVEMENTS
FAILURES OF THE QIN
HAN AND NEW INSTITUTIONS
HAN FOREIGN RELATIONS
EMPEROR WU’S DOMESTIC POLICIES AND THEIR RAMIFICATIONS
WANG MANG: REFORMER OR USURPER?
RESTORATION OF A WEAKER HAN DYNASTY
SPIRITUAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE HAN
HAN LITERATURE AND ART
FURTHER READING
[4] CHAOS AND RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL RESPONSES, 220–581
THREE KINGDOMS
RISE OF SOUTH CHINA
FOREIGNERS AND NORTH CHINA
NORTHERN WEI
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENTS, POST-HAN
BUDDHISM ENTERS CHINA
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND THE ARTS IN A PERIOD OF DIVISION
NOTES
FURTHER READING
PART II: China among Equals
[5] RESTORATION OF EMPIRE UNDER SUI AND TANG, 581–907
SUI: FIRST STEP IN RESTORATION
DISASTROUS FOREIGN CAMPAIGNS
ORIGINS OF THE TANG
TAIZONG: THE GREATEST TANG EMPEROR
TANG EXPANSIONISM
IRREGULAR SUCCESSIONS AND THE EMPRESS WU
TANG COSMOPOLITANISM
ARRIVAL OF FOREIGN RELIGIONS
GLORIOUS TANG ARTS
DECLINE OF THE TANG
TANG FACES REBELLIONS
UYGHUR EMPIRE AND TANG
TANG’S CONTINUING DECLINE
SUPPRESSION OF BUDDHISM
FINAL COLLAPSE
EFFLORESCENCE OF TANG CULTURE
NOTES
FURTHER READING
[6] POST-TANG SOCIETY AND THE GLORIOUS SONG, 907–1279
FIVE DYNASTIES AND TEN KINGDOMS
SONG: A LESSER EMPIRE
A NEW SONG ELITE
NEO-CONFUCIANISM: A NEW PHILOSOPHY
ATTEMPTS AT REFORM
WOMEN AND THE SONG
THE KHITANS AND THE LIAO DYNASTY
EXPANSION OF KHITAN TERRITORY
PRESERVATION OF KHITAN IDENTITY
FALL OF THE LIAO
XIA AND JIN: TWO FOREIGN DYNASTIES
SONG ARTS
SOUTHERN SONG ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL SOPHISTICATION AND POLITICAL INSTABILITY
NOTES
FURTHER READING
PART III: China and the Mongol World
[7] MONGOL RULE IN CHINA, 1234–1368
RISE OF CHINGGIS KHAN
LEGACY OF CHINGGIS KHAN
EXPANSION AND EARLY RULE OF EMPIRE
SORGHAGHTANI BEKI, MÖNGKE, AND KHUBILAI
UNIFICATION OF CHINA
KHUBILAI’S POLICIES
MULTIETHNIC AND MULTIRELIGIOUS CHINA
KHUBILAI AND CHINESE CULTURE
DECLINE OF THE YUAN
LEGACY OF THE MONGOLS
NOTES
FURTHER READING
[8] MING: ISOLATIONISM AND INVOLVEMENT IN THE WORLD, 1368–1644
A MORE POWERFUL STATE
OPENING TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD
A COSTLY FAILURE
CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION
ARTS IN THE MING
NEO-CONFUCIANISM: SCHOOL OF THE MIND
A FEW UNORTHODOX THINKERS
MING LITERATURE
BUDDHISM: NEW DEVELOPMENTS
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND MATERIAL CULTURE
VIOLENCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
FALL OF THE MING DYNASTY
FURTHER READING
PART IV: China in Global History
[9] EARLY QING: A MANCHU DYNASTY, 1644–1860
PRESERVING MANCHU IDENTITY
KANGXI AND THE HEIGHT OF THE QING
WESTERN ARRIVAL
JESUITS IN CHINA
EXPANSION OF CHINA
QING CULTURAL DEVELOPMENTS
QING FACES ECONOMIC PROBLEMS
STIRRINGS OF DISCONTENT
THE WESTERN CHALLENGE
OPIUM WARS
EXPLANATIONS FOR THE DECLINE OF THE QING
FURTHER READING
[10] LATE QING, 1860–1911
NIAN AND OTHER MINOR REBELLIONS
TAIPING REBELLION
OTHER REBELLIONS
FOREIGN THREATS
DIFFERING COURT RESPONSES TO CHALLENGES
ANTIFOREIGN ACTS AND FOREIGN REACTIONS
LOSSES IN SOUTHWEST CHINA
JAPAN EMERGES
SINO–JAPANESE CONFLICT
SCRAMBLE FOR CONCESSIONS AND US RESPONSE
CHINA HUMILIATED AND THE REFORMERS
BOXER MOVEMENT
COURT REFORMS
FALL OF THE QING
NOTES
FURTHER READING
[11] THE REPUBLICAN PERIOD, 1911–1949
THE 1911 REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
WARLORDS IN POWER
THE MAY FOURTH MOVEMENT AND INTELLECTUALS IN THE POST-FIRST WORLD WAR PERIOD
COMMUNIST PARTY
RISE OF CHIANG KAI-SHEK
GUOMINDANG DOMINANCE
COMMUNIST PARTY REVIVAL
LONG MARCH AND AFTERMATH
THE SINO–JAPANESE WAR
THE PACIFIC WAR, THE COMMUNISTS, AND THE GUOMINDANG
CIVIL WAR IN CHINA
FURTHER READING
[12] THE COMMUNIST ERA IN CHINA, 1949 ONWARDS
EARLY PACIFICATION OF BORDER AREAS
EARLY FOREIGN RELATIONS
RECOVERY FROM WARS
CRACKS IN THE COMMUNIST WORLD
GREAT LEAP FORWARD
RETURN TO PRAGMATISM
AN ISOLATED CHINA
GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION
CHINA REOPENS ITS DOORS
DRAMATIC CHANGES AND MODERNIZATION
TIANANMEN DISTURBANCE OF 1989 AND ITS AFTERMATH
THE PRESENT STATUS OF CHINA
FURTHER READING
INDEX
THE BLACKWELL HISTORY OF THE WORLD
General Editor: R. I. Moore
*The Origins of Human Society
Peter Bogucki
Empire and Civilization: The Domestication of Eurasia
Peter Bang
The Indo-Muslim World
Francis Robinson
*A History of India, Second Edition
Burton Stein
A History of South-East Asia
Anthony Reid
*A History of China
Morris Rossabi
*A History of Japan
Conrad Totman
*A History of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific
Donald Denoon, Philippa Mein-Smith & Marivic Wyndham
A History of the Eastern Mediterranean
Nicholas Doumanis
The Western Mediterranean and the World
Teofilo F Ruiz
A History of Western Europe
Robin Briggs
A History of Central and Northern Europe
Robert Frost
*A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia: Volume I
David Christian
A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia: Volume II
David Christian
*A History of Latin America
Available in third edition as ‘A History of Latin America to 1825’
Peter Bakewell
Foundations of the Modern World
R. I. Moore
The Early Modern World
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
*The Birth of the Modern World
C. A. Bayly
The Transformation of the Modern World
C. A. Bayly
* Denotes title published
This edition first published 2014
© 2014 Morris Rossabi
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rossabi, Morris.
A history of China / Morris Rossabi.
pages cm. – (The Blackwell history of the world)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55786-078-1 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-57718-113-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. China–History. I. Title.
DS735.R68 2014
951–dc23
2013006410
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Wang Ruihui, Grandparents and Grandchildren before a portrait of Mao, Gouache on paper, 57 × 43.2 cm, 20th century. Princeton University Art Museum, NJ. Photo: Bruce M. White. © 2013. Princeton University Art Museum/Art Resource NY/Scala, Florence
Cover design by Nicki Averill
SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE
There is nothing new in the attempt to understand history as a whole. To know how humanity began and how it has come to its present condition is one of the oldest and most universal of human needs, expressed in the religious and philosophical systems of every civilization. But only in the past few decades has it begun to appear both necessary and possible to meet that need by means of a rational and systematic appraisal of current knowledge. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, history itself was generally treated as a subordinate branch of other fields of learning, of literature, rhetoric, law, philosophy, or religion.
When historians began to establish history’s independence as a field of scholarship in its own right, with its own subject matter and its own rules and methods, they made it in practice not the attempt to achieve a comprehensive account of the human past but the history of western Europe and of the societies created by European expansion and colonization. In laying the scholarly foundations of their discipline, they also reinforced the Enlightenment’s belief in the advance of “civilization” (and, more recently, of “western civilization”), and made it, with relatively minor regional variation, the basis of the teaching of history almost everywhere for most of the twentieth century. Research and teaching of the histories of other parts of the world developed mainly in the context of area studies like those of ancient Greece and Rome, dominated by philology, and conducted through the exposition of the canonical texts of their respective languages. World history as such remained the province of thinkers and writers principally interested in constructing theoretical or metaphysical systems. Only toward the very end of the century did the community of academic historians begin to recognize world history as a proper and even urgent field for the application of their knowledge and skills.
The inadequacy of the traditional parameters of the discipline is now widely – though not universally – acknowledged, and the sense is growing that a world facing a common future of headlong and potentially catastrophic transformation needs its common history. Its emergence has been delayed, however, by simple ignorance on the one hand – for the history of enormous stretches of space and time was known not at all, or so patchily and superficially as not to be worth revisiting – and on the other by the lack of a widely acceptable basis upon which to organize and discuss what is nevertheless the enormous and enormously diverse knowledge that we have.
The first of those obstacles is now being rapidly overcome. There is almost no part of the world or period of its history that is not the subject of vigorous and sophisticated investigation by archaeologists and historians. The expansion of the horizons of academic history since the 1980s has been dramatic. The quality and quantity of historical research and writing has risen exponentially in each decade, and the advances have been most spectacular in the areas previously most neglected. Nor have the academics failed to share the results of their labors. Reliable and accessible accounts are now readily available of regions, periods, and topics that even twenty years ago were obscure to everyone but a handful of specialists. In particular, collaborative publication, in the form of volumes or sets of volumes in which teams of authors set forth, in more or less detail, their expert and up-to-date conclusions in the field of their research, has been a natural and necessary response to the growth of knowledge. Only in that way can non specialists, at any level, be kept even approximately in touch with the constantly accelerating accumulation of information about the past.
Yet the amelioration of one problem exacerbates the other. It is truer than it has ever been that knowledge is growing and perspectives are multiplying more quickly than they can be assimilated and recorded in synthetic form. We can now describe a great many more trees in a great deal more detail than we could before, but it does not always follow that we have a better view of the wood. Collaboration has many strengths, but clarity, still less originality, of vision is rarely among them. History acquires shape, structure, relevance – becomes, in the fashionable catch-phrase, something for thinking with – by advancing and debating new propositions about what past societies were like; how they worked and why they changed over long periods of time; and how they resembled and why they differed from contemporaneous societies in other parts of the world. Such insights, like the sympathetic understanding without which the past is dead, are almost always born of individual creativity and imagination.
There is a wealth of ways in which world history can be written. The oldest and simplest view, that it is best understood as the history of contacts between peoples previously isolated from one another, from which (as some think) all change arises, is now seen to be capable of application since the earliest times. An influential alternative focuses upon the tendency of economic exchange to create self-sufficient but ever expanding “worlds” that sustain successive systems of power and culture. Another seeks to understand the differences between societies and cultures, and therefore the particular character of each, by comparing the ways in which their values, social relationships, and structures of power have developed. The rapidly emerging field of ecological history returns to a very ancient tradition of seeing interaction with the physical environment, and with other animals, at the centre of the human predicament, while insisting that its understanding demands an approach that is culturally, chronologically, and geographically comprehensive. More recently still, “Big History” (one of the leaders of which is among the contributors to this series) has begun to show how human history can be integrated with that not only of the natural but also of the cosmic environment, and better understood in consequence.
Each volume of the Blackwell History of the World offers a substantial account of a portion of the history of the world large enough to permit, and indeed demand, the reappraisal of customary boundaries of regions, periods, and topics, and in doing so reflects the idiosyncrasies of its sources and its subjects, as well as the vision and judgment of its author. The series as a whole seeks not to embody any single approach but to support them all, as it will use them all, by providing a modern, comprehensive, and accessible account of the entire human past. Its plan combines the indispensable narratives of very-long-term regional development with global surveys of developments across the world at particular times, of interaction between regions and what they have experienced in common, or visited upon one another. In combination these volumes will provide a framework in which the history of every part of the world can be viewed, and a basis upon which most aspects of human activity can be compared across both time and space. A frame offers perspective. Comparison implies respect for difference. That is the beginning of what the past has to offer the future.