The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han, Volume 1

Mark Edward Lewis

Harvard University Press, Apr 20, 2007 - History - 321 pages

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.

Contents

• Introduction I: 1
• A State Organized for War: 30
• The Paradoxes of Empire: 51

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han, Volume 1; Volume 1 of History of Imperial China, Mark Edward Lewis; The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han, Mark Edward Lewis
• Author: Mark Edward Lewis
• Edition: illustrated, reprint, annotated
• Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2007
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Sep 9, 2008
• ISBN: 067402477X, 9780674024779
• Length: 321 pages
• Subjects: History / Ancient / General; History / Asia / China; History / Civilization