Product Description

In 221 bc the First Emperor of Qin unified the lands that would become the heart of a Chinese empire. Though forged by conquest, this vast domain depended for its political survival on a fundamental reshaping of Chinese culture. With this informative book, we are present at the creation of an ancient imperial order whose major features would endure for two millennia.

The Qin and Han constitute the "classical period" of Chinese history--a role played by the Greeks and Romans in the West. Mark Edward Lewis highlights the key challenges faced by the court officials and scholars who set about governing an empire of such scale and diversity of peoples. He traces the drastic measures taken to transcend, without eliminating, these regional differences: the invention of the emperor as the divine embodiment of the state; the establishment of a common script for communication and a state-sponsored canon for the propagation of Confucian ideals; the flourishing of the great families, whose domination of local society rested on wealth, landholding, and elaborate kinship structures; the demilitarization of the interior; and the impact of non-Chinese warrior-nomads in setting the boundaries of an emerging Chinese identity.

The first of a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, The Early Chinese Empires illuminates many formative events in China's long history of imperialism--events whose residual influence can still be discerned today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135531 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780674024779
• BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
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From Booklist
Inaugurating a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, this volume holds that characteristics of the first Chinese empire broadly endured for the succeeding 2,000 years. Structuring the subject topically while integrating chronology in a supporting capacity, Lewis explains the geographical advantages that the Qin enjoyed over its competitors in China's Warring States period (481-221 BCE). Curiously, the Qin empire existed for only two decades--long enough, however, to ordain the emperor as semidivine and to establish other features of state, such as bureaucracy. Describing its moving parts of army and administration, Lewis attends to military campaigns of the Qin and its successor dynasty, the Han. Beyond the statecraft, the author delves into the Confucian culture that informed it, presenting extracts from Chinese literature of the period that instructed officials on correct conduct. Confucianism itself was drawn from deeper cultural wells of family relations and cultic worship, which Lewis brings out in glimpses into everyday life provided by archaeological discoveries. Libraries planning to acquire the entire series mustn't omit Lewis' solid foundation. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
As the first volume in the History of Imperial China, The Early Chinese Empires sets an authoritative, reliable tone that bodes well for this important new series. The book meets a high standard of historical accuracy and covers an impressively broad range of topics. Accessible to a wide audience, it will appeal to anyone interested in the foundations of the Chinese imperial tradition.
--Victor H. Mair, University of Pennsylvania (20080314)

Inaugurating a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, this volume holds that characteristics of the first Chinese empire broadly endured for the succeeding 2,000 years...[Those] planning to acquire the entire series mustn't omit Lewis' solid foundation.
--Gilbert Taylor (Booklist )

The standard multivolume history of China has long been the magisterial, exhaustive Cambridge History of China. Now Harvard University Press has announced a six-volume series that will cover the rise, development, and decline of dynastic China from the second century B.C.E. through the early 20th century in an up-to-date, compact, and approachable way. This opening volume by Lewis foretells that the series will become the new gold standard, as the author explains in clear and telling detail how the Qin dynasty ruthlessly defeated a succession of rivals to unify briefly what we now call China in 221 B.C.E. We then see how the succeeding Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) combined social engineering and political savvy to institutionalize control and form a 'classical' era parallel to the Greeks and Romans in the West. Han imperial structures, including religion, literature, and law, were quite different from what evolved out of them, but Lewis convincingly argues that later societies cannot be understood without understanding this classical foundation.
--Charles W. Hayford (Library Journal (starred review) )

Mark Lewis's mind-opening and readable book reminds us of the enduring but changing realities of China.
--Jonathan Mirsky (Times Literary Supplement )

About the Author
Mark Edward Lewis is Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Chinese Culture, Stanford University.

Timothy Brook is Professor of History at the University of British Columbia.

Customer Reviews

Solid
A solid introduction to Chinese Imperial history. This is the first volume of a projected survey of Imperial history being brought out by Harvard University Press. Lewis presents the first Chinese Empires, the Chin and the Han, as developing several of the basic institutions that would characterize the Chinese state for centuries. These include the overarching goal of a unified state transcending regions, a political system based on the Emperor as source of all authority and focal point of loyalty, the development of a unified intellectual culture serving the state, the demilitarization of the interior and development of professional and client armies defending the frontiers against nomadic peoples, and the emergence of the gentry that would be the mediator between the Imperial center and the countryside.

Lewis describes the Chin/Han as akin to the Classical period of Western history. This is true in both the sense of these societies establishing basic features of their descendant cultures but also in the sense of the problems of reconstructing their histories. As with Classical history, Lewis draws on literary accounts, contemporary histories, a modest amount of surviving primary documents, epigraphy, and archaeological evidence. One thing that appears to be different is the greater degree of continuity between the Chin/Han and later states.

Lewis covers the emergence of the initial Chin empire from the preceding Warring States. This seems to be the story of the development of a relatively centralized and militarized state emerging from a welter of feudatories, and then able to conquer rival states to produce a unified Empire. The history of the succeeding Han is presented as a partial dismantling of Chin institutions to produce the basic features of the Chinese state. Lewis does not present a typical narrative but rather more of a structural analysis. Much of the book consists of thematic chapters on family life, religion, intellectual culture, and law. This may be due in part to the limitations of the narrative record. Perhaps for the same reason, some very intriguing aspects, such as the apparent considerable monetarization of the Chinese economy are not explored. There is a particularly interesting discussion of the military strategies adopted by the Han to deal with Central Asian nomads and how their failure apparently precipitated the fall of the Han.

Lewis is a competent, as opposed to very good, writer. Perhaps because of the survey format, there are some limitations for the general reader. A brief discussion of the nature of the Zhou feudal state would have been useful. Similarly, Lewis has a good discussion of the emergence of an official intellectual canon but little discussion of the actual content of its different components. Having raised the comparison with Classical history, Lewis provides no comparative discussion. For example, the use of Central Asian nomads as client armies invites comparison with the later Roman Empire.

There are a number of maps but they are not of very good quality. Overall, this is a good start for this series.

Very good coverage of the subject
This is a very good book covering this time period. It's broken down in to sections (religion, law, literature, etc.) to make it easy to follow, or easy to research just a particular topic. It's well written and easy to read and even enjoyable, which is a tough feat for a history book.

Some minor critiques: I wish the author or publisher had included the Chinese characters next to the pinyin words, so those familiar with the written language could better understand. Also, I think it should have started out with a long chapter giving a linear, chronological history of the Qin and Han periods. That would have made it better to understand some of the subsequent chapters. Reading this from front to back, you still get a good sense of the chronology, but starting out with that would have helped.

I'm looking forward to subsequent books in this series, plus I understand the author is also working on a different project discussing pre-imperial China. That will be nice.

Good Intro
The only other book that covers the period is the much larger volume 1 of _ The Cambridge History of China _. This book also makes use of recent archaeological work such as manuscripts found in tombs. My one objection is that while he frequently mentions Jia Yi he never mentions Jia's great fu (prose poem) "The Owl" so ably translated by Burton Watson and a few others. It's one of the finest expressions of philosophical Daoism, especially its attitude towards death.