READ THIS INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Topics in Premodern Chinese History, a textbook module designed for use in HIST 174 at Penn State University. Although you may not normally read book introductions, in this case, doing so should be worth your while.
The present series of textbook modules began in 1992 as a hastily-compiled set of visual aids for an introductory course in East Asia at Eastern Washington University. Over the course of eight major revisions at EWU, it gradually developed into its present form: a series of graphically-rich, privately-produced textbooks. Since 1997, the series has been in use at Penn State University. A major inspiration for this project has been my dislike of the available commercial textbooks, which tend to be too long, too bland, too expensive, and just plain tedious. This book is part of an ongoing attempt to make textbooks more useful.
Starting in 2000 and continuing well into 2001, I began the task of recasting these textbooks for the WWWeb, which is a vastly superior medium. The main difficulty was in redoing most of the graphics. In the printed version, they were all optimized for photocopier reproduction, which is the worst possible configuration for viewing on the screen. I have stopped producing printed versions and will continue to revise and enhance the web versions of these textbooks.
Topics in Premodern Chinese History and its counterparts are intended to differ from commercial textbooks in several key respects. First, these textbook modules are designed to fit perfectly with specific courses at PSU. They are intended to reduce greatly the need for taking notes and the usual anxieties about what information is of greater or lesser importance in the course. Properly used, these books can reduce note taking by as much as 80-90% and should help hold the quantity of information to manageable proportions (assuming reasonably good study habits, of course).
In terms of its approach to the subject matter, Topics in Premodern Chinese History emphasizes a succession of topics rather than strict adherence to the flow of time. In a general way, the chapters move from earlier periods of time to later periods of time, but their content and organization gives top priority to coverage of topics. These topics, while important and, hopefully, interesting are but a small subset of the content of Chinese history. Others putting together a book like this might select a significantly different set of topics. While the "mainstream" narrative of politics and institutions is present in these pages, the emphasis is on social and cultural history wherever possible.
More generally, a goal of this book and the course as a whole is to encourage broad, integrative thinking about history and human affairs. Readers are encouraged to compare Chinese history with the histories of other parts of the world and with contemporary problems and issues. Here and there, readers are also encouraged to think about the process of history making (i.e., writing) itself. How, in other words, have specific people or groups constructed their pasts, and what consequences might their choices have brought about? Constructing history is an ongoing human endeavor, and it is often fraught with controversy. In order usefully to think about larger issues, it is necessary to reduce the scope of coverage in a course like this and to increase the depth. In other words, it is better to study a smaller number of things in greater depth than to attempt a quick, superficial survey of a larger number of topics. Topics in Premodern Chinese History was written with these general goals in mind.
This book and its companions do a reasonably good job of solving a practical problem that inevitably occurs in survey history courses. Typically, a majority of the students in the course seek to do the least work possible to get by (whether "getting by" means simply passing or passing with a high grade). On the other hand, there is a smaller group who seek at least some degree of additional study beyond the minimum requirements of the course. This book can be used as a guide to getting by with the bare minimum. It contains almost everything you need to know (i.e., almost everything testable) about China in the course. For those who want to go beyond the minimum, the book also contains hints and suggestions for further inquiry. Most obvious are the links. Those enclosed with stars *_______* are essential, and those enclosed with hashmarks #_________# or nothing are optional. Also, whenever possible, the text attempts to raise broader issues beyond the scope of this course but which you can pursue further on their own and in other courses. The notes are also a good source for additional inquiry.
Of course, much of what this book is not can be inferred from reading the above paragraphs. Still, a few points should be made explicit. First and foremost, Topics in Premodern Chinese History makes no attempt at broad, comprehensive coverage. In this respect it is quite unlike commercial textbooks that try to include a little of everything. (Here's the sad truth about commercial textbooks: http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i43/43b00501.htm.) This book reflects the philosophy that study of a smaller number of topics in depth is ultimately more useful and interesting in a survey course than attempting the impossible task of sampling a little of everything. Textbooks offering broad coverage are easy to obtain at libraries, at new & used bookstores, and online, and you should feel free to read such books on your own. Asian Studies majors and others who plan to pursue the study of China or East Asia more thoroughly are especially encouraged to read through one or more survey textbooks, either now or later during your course of study.
In terms of content, this book differs from many other textbooks in that it contains relatively less political, institutional and military history and relatively more social and cultural history than is typically the case. This difference in emphasis corresponds with a major goal of the course, namely, the acquisition of a rudimentary "cultural literacy" of classical China. Ideally, you will understand something of how educated Chinese at various times in the past comprehended the world in which they lived.
Finally, this book is not intended to be published by a commercial press. Should I ever write a survey textbook manuscript for publication (and I have no plans to do so in the foreseeable future), it will necessarily take a very different form from the present book.
There are no hard and fast rules about how to use this book, and each reader will find her or his own way. However, I can offer a few suggestions based on experience. Some students like to bring printed pages with them to class and jot down notes in the margins. Doing so is convenient because class presentations will closely follow the book. The way to do it is: Edit--Select All--Copy. Then paste (Ctrl-v or Edit--Paste) it into a word processor or text editor and adjust fonts and margins to your liking. However, this book and its companions are designed primarily for on-screen viewing. There is absolutely no need to print them, and most students do not. Even if you do print some or all of this book remember that the links are often as important as the text, so it will still be necessary to put in some time in front of a computer screen.
"So do I even have to come to class?" you may be thinking. Class attendance is not absolutely necessary, but it is highly recommended. Class presentations will feature a wider variety and higher quality of visual aids. Also, verbal and written formats necessarily differ, so class presentations will approach the material in slightly different ways than do the words and images in the book. Another advantage of regular class attendance is the ease of asking questions should something seem confusing or unclear.
This book and its companions are rich in graphical images, but you'll have to click on the links to see them. Some of the images are relatively unimportant (a picture of someone whose name comes up in the text, for example), and these will usually be marked "#____#." But many of them are intended to represent key concepts, organizational structures, or historical developments in visual form. Such images should be studied with the same care as the text. Also, some images are included for the purpose of illustrating aspects of Chinese history and culture through the medium of art, both popular and "high-brow." They, too, are important and worthy of concentrated study. Important images will always be indicated by *________.* One of the benefits of studying the visual images presented here an in class is that you may become better at "reading" them. Visual images entail the same range of complexity as does verbal/textual communication and thus require approximately the same degree of study.
For technical information about how best to use this book, click here.
It is quite likely that you will read some or all of this book more than once. One reason is that some topics are especially difficult and may require several readings to make full sense. Class presentations will focus especially on the more difficult material, and the ideal reading schedule is roughly as follows. Using the syllabus as a guide to classroom topics, stay one or two class days ahead of schedule in your reading. Then, attend class and think along with the instructor's presentation, asking questions about any points that continue to be unclear. Then re-read all the relevant pages starting about a week before each exam (don't try to do it all the day before).
What about the characters 漢子? Am I missing something if I can't read them? If, like most readers, you cannot read the characters, do not worry about it. But if you do read Chinese characters or want to see them for their exotic effect, be sure to download traditional Chinese character ("Big 5") support into your browser. If there are two green boxes after the word "characters" in the question, then your browser cannot read them. If you are using IE 5 or above, you should be prompted to download the support automatically when encountering a page with characters. Once downloaded, you are set. I'm sure Netscape also supports Chinese characters, but I do not know the details.
The characters are intended to serve several purposes. First, some students taking this course have studied Chinese or East Asian history in Taiwan, China, or another East Asian country. The characters serve to indicate the native Chinese terminology for key terms, concepts, institutions, et cetera for these students. Also, many readers of this text will be students of Chinese or another East Asian language, and the characters may sometimes help reinforce their study. Finally, for those with no connection to East Asian languages, the characters serve as subtle reminders that our study of East Asian history involves a process of translating material from other times and places into terms intended to make sense to contemporary students at a university in the United States. Indeed, this process of translation applies to the study of almost any historical time or place, but it is, or should be, especially apparent in the case of premodern China/East Asia.
What about the footnotes? Should I pay attention to them? Most readers most of the time will not need to pay attention to the notes. The notes serve three purposes. First, they satisfy the basic requirement of academic protocol to provide exact references for quoted passages. Interested readers may therefore look up the passage in its original context. Second, the notes are places for interesting asides or digressions that are related to material in the main text but go beyond the subject matter of the course. Third, and perhaps most important, the notes serve as recommendations for further reading for those who may be interested in a particular topic. Note 1 in this Introduction, for example, fulfils purposes two and three.
What about memorizing things? To what extent should I do so? This question cannot be answered simply. There is an inaccurate stereotype of historical study that claims it is all about memorizing names and dates. Because of an understandable desire to emphasize that history is much more than mere factual memorization, many instructors are uneasy about the whole topic of memorization. But memorization--short-term memorization--is necessary to some extent in almost any course about anything. The best analogy I can come up with is that of a *personal computer running a program*--a word processing program, let us say. Clicking on the program's icon launches an executable file, which loads and stores key components of the program in the computer's short-term memory (i.e., its RAM). Loading this program code into short-term memory enables all the sophisticated formatting capabilities of which most word processing software is capable. Of course, once the machine is turned off, the short-term memory is erased (as well as any data you neglected to save to disk, so save frequently).
Obviously, we run programs for much more sophisticated ends than simply to load program code into random access memory, but the loading is an essential prerequisite for accomplishing these ends. And so it is with our own RAM-like short-term memories in a history course. Some basic information, including names, time sequences (more so than exact dates), core ideas, et cetera must be remembered so that we can readily use this information as part of a more sophisticated analysis of human affairs. That most students will forget the memorized information soon after it is no longer needed in the course is no problem. It has served its purpose, and the hope is not that you will remember the detailed facts ("factoids" as they now seem to be called) about Japanese or East Asian history for a long time, but that you will remember some of the more complex conclusions of our study in a way that they may enrich your life as a thinking being. It is also hoped that you will internalize some of the process of historical inquiry presented in this book and in the course as a whole, thereby becoming a more discerning, critical consumer of history. So do not neglect to memorize key factual data (the book will often identify this data for you, especially in the first chapter), but understand that such memorization is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
1Incidentally, there is a long history of hostility to and fear of visual images in Western culture (broadly defined), owing in large part to anxiety over the sense of sight and its alleged ability to create idols and fetishes. Therefore, "pure" text has long been considered the most appropriate vehicle for true intellectual discourse, while visual images have been regarded as, at best, didactic tools for the unlettered masses. While I agree that visual images can be excellent aids in learning, I do not hold the view that they are a lesser means of communication than are words. Indeed, I do not think it is even reasonable to make a sharp separation between the two. There is a large literature on this interesting topic, and two of the best books are David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); and W. J. T. Mitchell, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).
