World History

Unit 1: The Beginnings of Civilization

Chapter 4: Ancient Chinese Civilization

Mon, Sep 30, 2013

9. Tue, Oct 1, 2013

The scope of ancient Chinese culture is enormous, and could easily consume a semester or a whole year — and we have only a week for it. The first task, probably, is to get a mental picture of the shape of the dynastic sequence, since most of the rest of ancient Chinese history is contextualized with reference to these dynasties. The oldest two are fairly obscure, but show signs of a rich culture even very early on. Written language appears quite early in China. The great breaking point, of course, is the Qin dynasty: the First Emperor was fantastically energetic, ruthless in prosecuting his goals, and widely hated, but he did establish the precedent of a single imperial state rather than a collection of kingdoms. Though the separate kingdoms occasionally briefly reasserted themselves subsequently, that notion of a unified Chinese empire has endured to this day, surviving dogmatic shifts in religion and politics even through the Communist era. The issues surrounding, for example, the Korean War or the independence of Tibet cannot really be understood without keeping one eye on this long and significant tradition.

Those who have taken World Literature will recall the Book of Songs, which is a product of the pre-imperial period, chiefly from the early Zhou dynasty (the World Literature textbook uses the transliteration “Chou”): these were old songs even in the time of Confucius.

There is a wide range of material to discuss, but here are a few points to consider as we go:

• What are some of the implications of a strong central government? What are its advantages? What are its disadvantages?
• Does the First Emperor seem to have been pursuing a purposeful goal in respect to centralization, or does he rather seem to have been trying to amass power for himself?
• Bear in mind the push toward centralization here as we compare it later with similar movements in the Roman empire. How is it brought about, and what are the social and cultural consequences?

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