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The Tang–Song Transition in Chinese Economic History

from Interlude

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2022

Debin Ma
Affiliation:
Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo
Richard von Glahn
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

At the turn of the twentieth century, Chinese scholars eager to assimilate the historical sciences of the West and incorporate their history into universal historical narratives readily adopted the tripartite periodization of Western civilization divided into ancient, medieval, and modern epochs. This framework of linear, stadial progression toward modernity offered liberal intellectuals in China the promise of emancipation from China’s stultifying past and rebirth as full citizens in a modern world of equal nation-states. Marxist scholars invoked a parallel tripartite periodization divided into slave, feudal, and capitalist epochs, but adapted to accentuate the defining feature of Chinese history: the rise of a “bureaucratic, centralized feudal state” that fostered “economic stagnation” throughout the longue durée of the imperial era, from the first universal empire of Qin in the third century bce to the irruption of Western imperialism in the nineteenth century.1 The ideas of “oriental stagnation” and the “Asiatic mode of production” likewise inflected Western historiography on China, and the notion of an unchanging “traditional China” prior to the advent of the West in the post-Opium War era predominated in Western scholarship on Chinese history down to the 1970s.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Further Reading

Clark, Hugh, “Why Does the Tang–Song Interregnum Matter?”, Journal of Song–Yuan Studies 46 (2016), 128; 47 (20172018), 131; 49 (2020), 1–44.Google Scholar
Elvin, Mark, The Pattern of the Chinese Past (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1973).Google Scholar
Fogel, Joshua A., Politics and Sinology: The Case of Naitō Konan (1866–1934) (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, 1984).Google Scholar
Hartwell, Robert M., “Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750–1550,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42.2 (1982), 365442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nap-yin, Lau 柳立言, “Hewei Tang Song biange?” 何謂唐宋變革, Zhonghua wenshi luncong 中華文史論叢 81 (2006), 125–71.Google Scholar
Huarui, Li 李华瑞, “‘Tang Song biange’ lunde youlai yu fazhan” 『唐宋变革』论的由来与发展, Hebei xuekan 河北学刊 2010.4, 5765; 2010.5, 67–77.Google Scholar
Luo, Yinan, “A Study of the Changes in the Tang–Song Transition Model,” Journal of Song–Yuan Studies 35 (2005), 99127.Google Scholar
Miyakawa, Hisayuki, “The Naitō Hypothesis and Its Effects on Japanese Studies of China,” Far Eastern Quarterly 14.3 (1955), 533–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ichisada, Miyazaki 宮崎市定, Tōyōteki kinsei 東洋的近世 (Kyoto, Kyōiku taimusu sha, 1950).Google Scholar
Torajirō, Naitō (Konan) 內藤虎次郎(湖南), Shina ron 支那論 (Tokyo, Bunkaidō shoten, 1914).Google Scholar
Yasuhiko, Satake 佐竹靖彦, “Zōsetsu” 総説, in Yasuhiko, Satake et al. (eds.), Sō Gen jidaishi no kihon mondai 宋元時代史の基本問題 (Tokyo, Kyūko shoin, 1996), pp. 342.Google Scholar
Tackett, Nicolas, “A Tang–Song Turning Point,” in Szonyi, Michael (ed.), A Companion to Chinese History (Hoboken, Wiley Blackwell, 2017), pp. 118–28.Google Scholar
von Glahn, Richard, “Imagining Pre-modern China,” in Smith, Paul J. and von Glahn, Richard (eds.), The Song–Yuan–Ming Transition in Chinese History (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, 2003), pp. 3570.Google Scholar

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