写作素材-1 | China, Society, History

Society, Politics, History

Interpretations, Narrative, Interconnection

China, Empire

The Old China: an empire

• definition of an empire: a large, composite, multi-ethnic or multi-national political unit, usually created by conquest, and divided between the dominant centre and subordinate, sometimes distant peripheries (Howe)

1. problems with terminology:

   --- 'large': howlarge is considered large enough, since geographical or territorial span is a spectrum of relative size?

   --- 'political unit': how integrated should an entity be to be eligible as a whole 'unit'? Are there some essential functional actions which define or characterise the working of one political unit?

   --- 'multi-national': what is a nation? is it the same as our modern discourse of a 'nation-state'?

2. essential functions of a political unit:

   -- tax collection

   -- war-making coordination

3. these core functions could be carried out only if the unit is successful in its capacity to control resources with a given territory.(key terms see below)

• 'control' -- generally understood as one actor/ group having the ability to impose will or power over or against another actor /group. 
• empire generally controls using a variety of means (implemented via state apparatus) - which could be mainly categorised into two primary methods: 1. coercion (i.e. the threat or the actual use of violence and force, through the military and justice system [with incarceration and execution]); and 2. consensus / cooperation (i.e. ideology)
• 'resources' --- generally understood to be two broad types: (1) material (basic necessities such as food and water; and other goods imbued with productive value, such as jewellery, art works, weapons etc.) and (2) human resources (personnel, talents, productivity)
• 'territory' -- the difficulty and variety of defining 'space': administrative space, strategic space, economic space, political space and so on... An empire only works if it can control resources in these various (overlapping) spaces.
• administrative space: demarcation of borders, definition of 'territories' on maps, subdivision of administrative governmental units. 
• strategic space: placement of military forces, establishment of defensible positions, organisation of military supply lines (logistical arrangements) and communication routes. 
• economic space: design of productive landscape (agriculture; other industry such as manufacturing) and commercial connectivities (trade routes, exchanges, supply chains etc.)
• political space: location of decision-making bodies and levels/hierarchy of authority 

what is a 'state'?

• it is deemed as a body with a set of central institutions and associated personnel, normally backed by armed forces (coercive power), that wields decision-making authority, over a particular/defined space.
• 'space' accomodates various interpretations - it is a word intentionally broadened to include different forms and shapes of organised political bodies.
• a state can be (a) a city-state (e.g. Athens, Sparta, Corinth), (b) a nation-state (e.g. modern-day France), and (c) an empire-state (e.g. New Babylonian Empire, Roman Empire, Han Empire) 

What is special about the Chinese empires are the duration (very enduring, as compared to others) and size (over a vast expanse of territories).

One possible factor for the sustainability of rule is the entrenchment of state control over all aspects of society in territories (though the degree was uneven across different parts of the empire) - possibly due to the very different aspiration of the rulers and their court(s) from the ones those in other empires had. 

To give a simple case, the Roman Empire aimed mostly to skim off taxes and demand military services from the provinces - that is, to enjoy the benefits of having an extended, resource-rich territory. Possibly the drive for the Romans to create an empire-wide identity was not primarily intended to foster uniformity in ideology, but rather to impose unity which could ease unfavourable sentiments towards the extractive policies of Rome. On the other hand, Han China might penetrate deeply into the territories not only for administrative agenda, but to push the people aligned - towards a single 'unified' state in every sense (including cultures and the mind).

However, it must be noted that to grasp the categories we discuss using very modern definitions (indeed in a way that is more to the expertise of a sociologist) may be limited - we are severely deficient in understanding the full range of experiences in the distant past. This is a dilemma that historians must grapple with.

• History is not just the 'past', but more importantly, the 'study' of the past (i.e. "historiography"). It is never just about rote memorisation of dates, names and events - but rather to identify linkages, compare trends and extract patterns from a welter of information.

• Historians are concerned with 'causes' and objectivity. They want to understand historical events and trends - why they occurred in the ways they did. Furthermore, in their inquiry, they aspire to nonpartisanship and balance - to draw 'facts' from sources of the past, not biased opinions colored by their own prejudices and assumptions. Though most of them are acutely aware that, no historian, however honest in his or her handling of the sources, is ever entirely "objective." Humans are not designed to function like unfeeling machines - they have interests, priorities and intuitions much shaped by their backgrounds, upbringings, education and preferences, moulded into various forms by their own conscious and unconscious beings - and hence are always inherently limited in perspectives when posing questions they consider relevant, selecting evidence they deem useful, and reading materials in manners they deem applicable. Analysis, therefore, always differs from individual to individual - so is the understanding of history (which,is based on analytical interpretation).

•  (Nylan) David Hackett Fischer has demonstrated, in his classic work Historians' Fallacies, that what questions we bring to the historical evidence inevitably shapes what answers we taken away from the evidence, and those questions are often reflections of our individual memories and experiences.

• History has long been defined as an explanatory account, a narrative featuring causes.  To explain [something] used to pass for being the sublime part of the historian's craft.  Indeed, it was considered that explanation consisted in finding a reason, garbed as a cause — that is, a scheme (the rise of the bourgeoisie, the forces of production, the revolt of the masses) that brought great and exciting ideas into play.  But let us suppose that explanation is reduced to envisaging a polygon of minor causes that do not remain constant from one set of circumstances to the next and that do not fill the specific places that a pattern would assign to them in advance.... [Then] another task that is no less interesting emerges: to reveal the unpredictable contours of this polygon,.. and to restore their original silhouette to events, which has been concealed under borrowed garments.  (Did the Greeks Believe in their Myths?, Paul Veyne p. 33).

• Seeing history as a polygon with an indefinite number of sides affords us the possibility, at least, of making a history that is truly richer, but this is likely to result only if we see each historical event or phenomenon as the unique conjunction of historical patterns, rather than the product of a single cause, says Veyne (Ibid., p. 38). 
  

•  (Nylan) All versions  of history (on a certain same event) are fundamentally flawed and partial, if only because the past is too rich and too complex to capture adequately in any single account. As for finding the "causes" of past events, because the past is necessarily seen through the eyes of the beholder, looking for causes now seems to many less interesting than another enterprise: trying to sketch for readers the way the past was viewed by those who experienced it. In other words, historians now seek to understand the varieties of human experience and perceptions, in order to improve their understanding of the full range of human capacities .

useful reference: (lec.)Empire (Nylan; Hardy)

Materials Written, Edited, Organised by Nina XL.

Note: This article is No.1 in the series.