This book presents a picture focused on the T'ang period, one of China's acknowledged golden ages. Within a looser web of globalization, the T'ang period and its dynamics offers a distant mirror of our own time. An argument in world history may thus cast light on issues in contemporary politics.
Autorentext
S.A.M. ADSHEAD is Professor Emeritus in History at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He was educated at Stowe School and Christ Church, Oxford, and studied Chinese History at Harvard University. He is the author of The Modernization of the Chinese Salt Administration, Province and Politics in Late Imperial China, Salt and Civilization, Central Asia in World History and The Philosophy of History in Nineteenth-Century England and Beyond.
Zusammenfassung
China's role in world history is again controversial thanks to Andre Gunder Frank's Re-Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. By contrast, this book presents an alternative interpretation of that role, less exclusively economic, more broadly based, and focused on the T'ang period, one of China's acknowledged golden ages. It shows how a different China, Buddhist or Taoist rather than Confucian, aristocratic as much as meritocratic, achieved, through openness to the outside world and partnership with its elites, a multiple pre-eminence in politics, economics, society and the intellect, not unlike that enjoyed by the United States today. Within a looser web of globalization, the T'ang period and its dynamics offers a distant mirror of our own time. An argument in world history may thus cast light on issues in contemporary politics.
Inhalt
Introduction Polemic: Before the Rise of the East André Gunder Frank's Concept of the World Order A Critique of André Gunder Frank's Concept of the World Order The Preponderance of the West Politics: The Genius of T'ang The Sui-T'ang Refoundation The Silver T'ang Restoration The Sung Counter-Revolution Contrast with the West Economy: China takes Centre Stage The Milieu of Chinese Economic Growth 500-1000 The Motors of Chinese Economic Growth 500-1000 The Management of Chinese Economic Growth 500-1000 Cross-Economic Comparison 500-1000 Society: A Multiple China The Interface Between the Economy and Society The Matrix of Social Activity: Family and Friends An Anthropology of Chinese Marriage Non-Kinship Institutions: A Multiple Associationism Cross-Social Comparisons 500-1000 Intellect: China's Complex Pluralism China's Intellectual Complexity China's Intellectual Pluralism Eurasian Intellectual Comparisons 500-1000 Return to the West: Reflux and Prognosis Politics 500-1000 Economy 1000-1500 Society 1000-1500 Intellect 1000-1500 Prognosis