Category Archives: history
The central power balance in Chinese hereditary monarchy
The Chinese monarchy lasted for several thousand years and had great impact upon the economic and social structure of the contemporary Chinese society. The ideology and mechanism supporting autocratic elements entrenched in the Chinese political system persist long after the original institutions collapsed. In this paper, I will use theories of autocracy, dictatorship to analyze …
Is Industrial Revolution an accident? Reflections on The Great Divergence by Kenneth Pomeranz
The book is the main reading for my course Economic History of China. Pomeranz’s main argument is simple: Europe and China pursued divergent paths of economic development, one capital-intensive and the other labor-intensive, largely because Europe had the New World to supply them with adequate energy, resources, and labor. I found most parts of his reasoning convincing. In the following, I …
China’s civil service examination system as a form of power sharing
In Mu Chien’s book Traditional government in imperial China: A Critical Analysis (中国历代政治得失), he argues that the civil examination exam was a way for the Chinese emperors to share their political power with the masses. This sounded weird at first insight. Chinese emperors had absolute political in their hands. Why do they have to share their power, then? A ruler always makes sure the …
Notes on the China’s Ming Dynasty
I have been reading Ray Huang’s book China: A Macro History. Huang analyzed Chinese history with a macro economic and social perspective, pointing out the long-term effects of many seemingly trivial events. It is definitely worth reading, either for foreigners to get an idea of Chinese history or for Chinese readers to refresh their memory and …
Notes on Patricia Crone’s discussion about pre-industrial society politics
My following thoughts are based on reading of Patricia Crone’s book Pre-industrial Societies, chapter 4. Pre-industrial society politics tended to be dominated by a small group of people, i.e. the ruling class. Hereditary kings tend to think about the state as their own possession or family property. Those who have easy access to the king, e.g. eunuchs in …
Scarcity and locality reflected in Chinese pre-industrial societies
In Patricia Crone’s book Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World, she put forward an interesting argument: scarcity and locality of activities are the two fundamental features of pre-industrial societies, and they justified the existence and development of various economic, political, and social institutions and policies in the pre-industrial world. It is interesting to relate this …
Notes on the structure of dictatorship
The below thoughts are based on Stephen Haber’s book about authoritarian government and Prof. Richard Wong’s lecture today. Because a dictator must depend on a launching group to help him seize power, he is faced with the threat that these people might take over his place after he becomes the autocrat. Therefore he must find a …
Notes on Chinese economic development in Song dynasty
The following thoughts are based on The Pattern of the Chinese Past by Mark Elvin. Many Chinese would perceive the Tang dynasty as the most prosperous period in the Chinese history. If measured in cultural diversity and openness to foreign countries, the Tang dynasty might be unrivalled. But a couple of important technological inventions and …
1587, a Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline
A fascinating novel-style Chinese history book with comments, written by an established Chinese historian, Huang Renyu. A brief introduction can be found here. The book’s name is a year in China’s Ming Dynasty, which the author thinks is the beginning of the dynasty’s decline. Among the Chinese dynasties, Ming is recent (1368-1644) and short. The book gives us a good flavor …
