China's role in world history has been controversial, especially as seen through an economic lens. This book presents an alternative interpretation of that role, less exclusively economic, more broadly based, and focused on the T'ang period, one of China's acknowledged golden ages. It shows how a different China, Buddhist or Taoist rather than Confucian, aristocratic as much as meritocratic, achieved, through openness to the outside world and partnership with its elites, a multiple preeminence in politics, economics, society and the intellect, not unlike that enjoyed by the United States today. Within a looser web of globalization, the T'ang period and its dynamics offers a distant mirror of our own time, casting a new light on issues in contemporary politics.
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About the Author
S.A.M. Adshead is Professor Emeritus in History at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A balanced sinocentric view of world history,
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This review is from: T'ang China: The Rise of the East in World History (Hardcover)
The description on the approach of the book provided by the "Book reviews" is fairly accurate. Therefore, I will only point out that rethinking world history has become a major concern of a significant number of historians over recent decades, and, in particular, China's role in world history is again controversial thanks to Andre Gunder Frank's Re Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. In this book Adshead looks at the forces which have shaped China throughout its history in order to offer an alternative interpretation of that role. He offers a survey of T'ang China, with the aim of asking questions such as how China came to occupy a central place in the world economy in pre-modern times; what forces helped shape China during this period, or how these forces may alter China's place in the Twenty-First century. More broadly, the book explores the ways in which regional changes have, throughout history, shifted the balance of the world. In order to achieve that, Adshead covers much of the political, cultural and economical history of Eurasia over the last two millenia. Besides, the book is not a difficult reading (content: 5 starts; pleasure of reading: 3).
Other books I would recommend to read are the following: "The History of Gov-ernment" by S.E. Finer; "The world economy. A millennial perspective" by Angus Maddison; "The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy", by Kennetz Pomeranz; "Strange Parallels: Volume 1, Integration on the Mainland : Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800-1830", by Victor Lieberman; and "The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation" by John M. Hobson.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Horrible writing style,
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This review is from: T'ang China: The Rise of the East in World History (Paperback)
The author clearly knows his Chinese history, there's no denying that. But this was a difficult and boring read, especially for someone like myself who has a layman's interest in the subject. He writes in an unnecessarily complicated and academic prose, full of extravagantly worded concepts that probably could've been more simplistically explained. Only other history professors can fully appreciate the writing style.
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