Cambridge History of China - Qin and Han Dynasties (221 BC to 220 AD)

Author: Richard C. Rudolph
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1992-02-01
Features: This Cambridge History of China: The Qin and Han Periods, originally the first volume of the Cambridge History of China, co-edited by John K. Fairbank and Richard C. Rudolph, was published by Cambridge University Press in 1986. The Cambridge History of China was not printed in chronological order of its volumes. Before this volume, Volumes 10, 11, and 3 had already been published and translated by the Translation Office of the Institute of History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, under the titles The Cambridge History of Late Imperial China and The Cambridge History of the Sui and T'ang Dynasties, respectively. Now, friends at the Institute of History have translated this volume as The Cambridge History of China: The Qin and Han Periods, and they asked me to write a few words for the book. I feel both honored and somewhat apprehensive. My knowledge in Qin and Han history is limited, and I was not qualified to write this introduction. However, thanks to the generous offer of Professor John K. Fairbank, I received a copy of this volume immediately after its publication, making me one of the earliest readers in China. Upon careful review of the entire volume, I wrote some reflections and published them as a book review in Historical Intelligence. In that review, I called for the urgent translation of this volume. Now, thanks to the efforts of everyone at the Institute of History, this wish has been fulfilled. It is indeed my duty to write a brief preface. The Cambridge History of China is a monumental work that brings together the efforts of many Western scholars who study Chinese history. This volume is no exception. The 16 chapters in this volume contain over 981 pages of original text, and the authors of each chapter are experts with long-term, in-depth research in their respective fields. For example, the author of Chapter 1, The State of Qin and the Qin Empire, Professor Emeritus John K. Fairbank of the University of Pennsylvania, published The Unifier of China in the 1930s; the author of Chapter 3, Wang Mang, the Restoration of the Han, and Later Han, Professor Hans J. van Nooten of Columbia University, wrote The Restoration of the Han Dynasty; the author of Chapter 6, Foreign Relations of the Han Dynasty, Professor Yu Ying-shih of Princeton University, authored Trade and Expansion in Han China; the author of Chapter 9, Qin and Han Law, Professor Eberhard von Korsch of the University of Leiden (Retired), wrote Qin Legal Bamboo Slips and Han Legal Bamboo Slips; the authors of Chapters 7, The Structure and Activities of Government, and 12, Religion and the Background of Intellectual Culture, Dr. John K. Fairbank of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of Cambridge, authored Han Administrative Records and The Way to Paradise—and so on, without listing them all. Other scholars, such as Professor Jacques Gernet of the Collège de France and Professor Emeritus Noboru Karashima of the University of Tokyo, are even more well-known. Thus, the author lineup of this volume can be considered a masterpiece in Western academia, and this book is truly the crystallization of Western research on Qin and Han history. Western studies on Qin and Han history have a long history. The Introduction to this volume provides a comprehensive overview, tracing it back to the works of the Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell, who arrived in China during the Ming-Qing transition. The Twenty-Four Histories of China begin with the Records of the Grand Historian and the Book of the Later Han, and readers typically start with the first four histories, so they encounter Qin and Han history early on. Moreover, the Qin and Han dynasties hold a special and important position in the entire history of China. Western scholars have done extensive research on Qin and Han history, and their achievements are quite substantial. A glance at the reference list in this volume gives a good impression. This Cambridge History of China: The Qin and Han Periods is based on such foundations and represents a synthesis and advancement of this research. For readers unfamiliar with Western studies, this volume provides a clear outline of its scope. It also cites many works by Japanese scholars, which will be valuable for reference. This book has several distinctive features, which I would like to introduce here. First, the study of Qin and Han history is listed as the first volume of the Cambridge History of China. This may be difficult for domestic readers to understand and may even provoke objections. The preface to the General Editor's Introduction of the Cambridge History of China explains this point. They mention that when planning this monumental work, they originally intended to start with the beginning of Chinese history. However, archaeological discoveries in China have been advancing rapidly, and since the 1970s, they have significantly expanded our understanding of prehistoric and even pre-thousand-year-old Chinese history, almost completely transforming our knowledge. At present, however, there is no consensus on how to integrate these new archaeological findings with traditional written records. Therefore, the book begins with the Qin and Han periods, which have a wealth of reliable historical evidence. This perspective differs fundamentally from the skeptical views of the "Doubting Antiquity" movement that emerged in late imperial China. The Cambridge History of China: The Qin and Han Periods extensively uses written materials and pays close attention to the authentication and textual criticism of these sources, which is a practice long upheld by many Western sinologists. As you can see, the citations in each chapter of this volume mostly use editions that have been carefully compiled and corrected, including annotations by scholars from China, Japan, and the West. The charts and tables in the volume are also supported by sufficient documentary evidence, reflecting the authors' emphasis on written sources. This does not mean that this volume does not value archaeological materials. On the contrary, many authors in this volume have cited important findings in Chinese archaeology. For example, the excavations of ancient capitals and the discovery of numerous large tombs are introduced and referenced in several chapters. Particularly in the sections on economic and social history, archaeological materials are more frequently involved. Since some authors of this volume are experts in the study of Qin and Han bamboo slips and silk manuscripts, their chapters effectively incorporate these materials. For instance, when discussing law, they cite the Yunmeng Shuihudi Qin Slips; when discussing military garrisons, they reference the Dunhuang and Juyan Han Slips, integrating specialized research into historical discourse. Chinese scholars studying Qin and Han history also adopt this approach. However, it is still common today for some to overemphasize the contributions of archaeology to historical research in pre-Qin times while neglecting the significance of Qin and Han archaeology. This, in my opinion, is not entirely fair.