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Chinese Society: An Historical Survey1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

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Traditional China was an agrarian society which experienced a significant development of handicraft and commerce. In this respect, China was similar to medieval Europe and to certain pre-Hellenistic civilizations of the northern and western Mediterranean. However, while these Western agrarian civilizations ultimately lost their societal identity, Chinese society perpetuated its basic features for millennia. And while medieval Europe saw a commercial and industrial revolution that led to the rise of an industrial society, traditional China never underwent such changes.

Obviously, when characterizing societal structures, it is not enough to speak of agriculture, handicraft, and trade in general. We must consider their ecological and institutional setting and the specific human relations involved in their operation.

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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1957

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References

2 Most of the phenomena discussed in this essay have been systematically treated in Wittfogel 1957. I therefore ask the interested reader to consult this volume for fuller analysis, argument, and documentation.

3 Wittfogel, 1957, pp. 372 ffGoogle Scholar. It was essentially through the classical economists that these concepts entered into the thinking of Marx. From the early 1850's to his death in 1883 Marx, following Richard Jones and John Stuart Mill, assigned to “Asiatic society”—and the “Asiatic mode of production”—an important part in his multilinear scheme of development (ibid., pp. 373 ff.).

4 See Alexander, W. D., Brief History of the Hawaiian People (New York, 1899), pp. 42 f., 83Google Scholar; Bennett, Wendell Clark, Archaeology of Kauai, Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin, No. 80 (Honolulu, 1931), pp. 9, 50 ff.Google Scholar

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6 The divination texts of Shang suggest a slightly warmer climate for late Shang, but a seasonal pattern of rainfall and aridity similar to that existing today. See Wittfogel, , “Meteorological Records from the Divination Inscriptions of Shang,” Geographical Review, XXX (1940), 121 ff.Google Scholar

7 Richthofen complicated his analysis of the hydraulic conquest of the Great North Chinese Plain by relying on a relatively late source, the Yü kung. But his statement that the alluvial lowlands of the Northern Plain could be settled only after the completion of comprehensive dike works (see von Richthofen, Ferdinand Freiherr, China, Ergebnisse eigener Reisen und darauf gegründeter Studien [Berlin, 1877], I, 354 ff)Google Scholar, expresses an elementary geo-agricultural truth which is valid independently of the date of origin of the Yü kung. (Cf. Wittfogel 1931, pp. 281 ff.)Google Scholar

8 The pioneer decipherer of the Shang inscriptions, Wang Kuo-wei, found in these in scriptions most of the names of the Shang rulers given in the Shih chi and the Bamboo Annals. Where differences appeared, he found the “suspect” Bamboo Annals more accurate than the Shih chi (Wang Kuo-wei, Kuan-t'ang chi-lin, 9.15a). Such facts, taken in conjunction with the manifestly high development of Shang culture and parallel situations in the prehistory of the Near East, suggest that the references to pre-Shang hydraulic activities in the Bamboo Annals and the Shih chi may also reflect, though perhaps with exaggerations, actual historical events.

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50 Wittfogel, 1957, pp. 105 f., 345.Google Scholar

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55 The institutional meaning of the Indian “examination life” becomes fully apparent when we realize that even the members of the warrior class, the customary rulers of Hindu India, were expected to study at least one Veda, and that many Brahmins served in the government.

56 Wittfogel, 1957, p. 338.Google Scholar

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