Volume One of The Cambridge History of China — like Sten’s cake in Dragon Age: Origins — is a lie. It is a collection of essays by subject-matter experts that ranges through China’s history from the height of the Qin Dynasty to the emergence of organised Buddhism and Daoism during the contention of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Afterwards came the conquests of Yáng Jiān (楊堅), the Cultured God-King of the Sui Dynasty (隋文帝).
I was about five hundred pages into the text before realising that the series has a companion book, The Cambridge History of Ancient China, that was more deserving of the title, Volume One. Oh well, tears can’t be unspilt, and volume one can’t be rewritten. Such is life.
Completing this volume will leave you well-informed about the history of China over the four hundred-some years that saw the emergence, entrenchment and ultimate survival of the imperial institution. It covers the dynastic histories of the Qin, Western Han, Xin and Eastern Han. It also alludes to the era of the Warring States to come. In addition, the writers sallied into dynastic foreign policy, State institutions, law, economic history, philosophy and religion.
Its downsides are expected, namely uneven prose quality across the chapters (written by different authors) and no quarter given to beginners. Expect your notes to need notes! Also, given its 1980s publication date, it uses the Wade-Giles transliteration. The style isn’t just repulsive; it is laborious to correct. You haven’t lived until you figure out that Pen-chi ching is rightly Běnshǐ Jīng (本始經).
Wise men say, only fools rush in. They also say don't teach kids to play with fire. I suppose playing with fire is the equivalent of giving this book to a Cao Cao-stanning, eunuchs-understanding, and Don’t Trust the Confucians partisan like me. I’ll cop to the fact that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Most of all, it makes you question orthodoxy. And that could have gotten you killed in the past! Thankfully, online pseudonymity means the worst is I'll get ALL CAPS responses.
Anyhoo.
Its reliance on literary sources means that this book essentially retells the official imperial histories in English. And that would be like getting your history of World War Two from Churchill! Mind you, that has its uses — I’ll read The Gathering Storm one day! However, such is the erudition of its authors that I was left with too many questions that undermined the cosy narrative.
For example, what do we mean by China? Is China an it — a place or idea, or a she — a defined country?
Google the etymology of China, and you’ll learn that the word is a Portuguese export to English via the Portuguese’ Indian connections. China comes from Qin. And that makes sense. After all, everybody knows that the Qin unified China.
The problem with that idea is that there is no evidence that the first Qin Empire had any connection to India. The first historical attestation to Buddhism — the bridge that linked both regions — was in 65, during the reign of the Luminous God-King of the (Eastern) Han Dynasty — centuries after the Qin Empire had perished. Further, widespread belief in the five phases made it unlikely that a Han courtier would have introduced themselves to a foreigner as the subject of a dynasty whose star had fallen.
In contrast to the Qin Empire (秦朝: 221 BC – 206 BC), the Former Qin (前秦:351 – 394) straddled Serindia and the central plains stomping grounds of 秦朝. She also had attested connections to India, and was briefly a leading centre for the translation of Buddhist Indian originals and their dissemination to the Southern Kingdoms.
I’ll leave you to decide which Qin was likely the Indians’ China.
Of course, the fact that its ruling clan were of the proto-Tibetan Di was enough to dismiss them as barbarians in the eyes of the literati. Mind you, some in that clique first claimed that Laozi and Buddha were the same person, then that Laozi was Buddha’s student and, finally, that Buddhism was an evil foreign import that could (and should) never take root in China. I dunno why some treat their every missive as gospel.
Millennia removed, I can write that Buddha was Indian, but Chan Buddhism is Chinese. That is because reading this volume has left me convinced that — at least in the centuries examined — China was an idea. E Pluribus Unum impels Empire. The idea that many people could be forged into one started off as a Confucian dream that was brought, kicking and screaming, into being by the wolves of Qin and the Tiger Generals of the Founding Ancestor of the Han Dynasty.
The august authors of this volume disagree. Their China is much narrower and poorer as a result. Regardless, I owe their effort no small amount of gratitude.
Reading Volume One of The Cambridge History of China is a much better use of your time than watching artfully crafted Wikipedia summaries on YouTube. You’ll be left yearning to know more. Shame about that Wade-Giles bidness though.