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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a worthwhile summary of lifetime's work,
By Boris Aleksandrovsky (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: China: A Macro History (An East Gate Book) (Paperback)
Ray Huang's "China: A Macro History" kept me up for a few nights in a row. Dr. Huang posed an extremely ambitious goal to explain fundamental differences of Western and Chinese civilizations, and to explore trends of Chinese government, military, cultural and religious institutions as they develop from legendary to modern times. The book is organized in chapters, each covering roughly a time span of the major dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. Concentration is more on trends (thus the title word "macro") then on events, more on developments of concepts rather then careers. People and events are represented inasmuch as they represent the underlining trend. As such every dynasty rise and eventual fall is represented, with credits due to each for the developments of Chinese nation. The institution of monarchy is a fascinating blend of ritual, unreal and fantastic, and idealistic, with an impressive organizational achievement in management of the country with the base of millions of agrarian households. The only grievance I have with the book is that understandably enough Dr. Huang had to skip over a lot of material (or he would risk leaving us with yet another "The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire"); however in doing so he is rarely consistent, e.g. not explaining the elemental precepts of Confucianism, organization of Chinese army and bureaucracy; and fundamental principles behind state examinations. All those, however, can be gotten from other sources, and as such will tempt the reader to explore more.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Decent Description; Arguable Analysis,
By
This review is from: China: A Macro History (An East Gate Book) (Paperback)
This is an ambitious effort to provide an overview of Chinese history. Huang divides Chinese history into 7 periods. The first is the period of state formation. The second is what Huang terms the First Empire, essentially the Qin and Han empires. This is followed by a chaotic interregnum, the Second Empire of the Sui, Tang, and Song, the Mongolian interlude, and the Third Empire of the Ming and the Qing. The final period is the one we're presently in, the destruction of traditional China and its replacement by a modern state. Huang covers the major dynastic changes, expansion of Chinese culture into the South of what is now modern China, and major intellectual trends. A good deal of the narrative, drawn from traditional chronicles, is 'top down' histories of the Imperial Courts. This is all solid.
Huang's efforts to provide an overview of the major structural features of Chinese history is surprisingly traditional. Huang presents the early formation of centralized Chinese states as driven to a large extent by geographic factors,including the very long border with the nomadic peoples of central Asia. Huang then presents the Chinese state as having most of the same structural features from its Qin foundation to the end of the Qing. This is very much a traditional description of a centralized bureacracy resting on a mass of peasants and supported by an ideology stressing social stability and resistant to intellectual innovation. Huang doesn't quite project the Marxist cliche of the 'Asiatic mode of production' or other cliches of 'oriental despotism' but his analysis isn't far away from such approaches. At the same time, Huang shows that the Chinese state never developed the efficient bureaucracy and systems of taxation needed to run such a huge state, often the seed of dynastic failure. Huang presents also a rather traditional analysis of China's failure to break out of the mold of its traditional society. This is presented as a failure to develop the type of bourgeois institutions that emerged in early modern Europe. This is again a traditional, semi-Marxist analysis. In this context, Huang sees the enormous upheavals of the last 2 centuries as needed to destroy traditional society and reconstruct it on a modern basis. This type of traditional analysis has been attacked in recent years. Some economic historians, like Kenneth Pomeranz in his book The Great Divergence, present 18th century Qing China as much more similar to Europe than previously thought. Some of Huang's language, notably his consistent use of the idea of the rationality of history, has a teleological flavor.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An overwhelmingly inspiring reading experience,
By A Customer
This review is from: China: A Macro History (An East Gate Book) (Paperback)
Late Professor Huang's review of Chinese history offers the most inspiring reading experience I have ever had. Although there are a few points which may appear a bit difficult to grasp, his unmatched depth in understanding and vision of China provides the reader with a refreshing perspective of interpreting Chinese history. This is especially true to Chinese readers who have been exposed to more or less the same interpretation of history for hundreds of years. His analysis of the so-called "blunders" and humiliation derived from Ming and Qing dynasties into early 20th century, was particularly interesting.
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