The Everlasting Empire: The Political Culture of Ancient China and Its Imperial Legacy

• Project MUSE - The Everlasting Empire;
• Do Not I Love Thee, O My Lord, Op. 90;
• My Child Has Asperger Syndrome - A Parents Guide to Coping.
• Ecrivains daujourdhui 1940-1960 : Dictionnaire anthologique et critique (Littérature) (French Edition)!
• The Everlasting Empire: The Political Culture of Ancient China and Its Imperial Legacy.
• Origine du nom de famille BARGE (Oeuvres courtes) (French Edition).
• !

Yuri Pines, The Everlasting Empire: Two tentative conclusions are also worth mentioning. The second conclusion is also significant beyond the realm of architecture. In each entry Cytryn-Silverman presents name, location, geographical coordinates, a description, archaeological data inscription, remains, pottery, etc.

Pines, Yuri, The Everlasting Empire: The Political Culture of Ancient China and Its Imperial Legacy

This is a huge amount of data, and the author leaves it as she presents it, i. But I suspect that Cytryn-Silverman is aware that this may not be possible— not because of the incompleteness of her data, which on the contrary are thoroughly exhaustive, but because of the impossibility of categorizing the set of inns surveyed in the gazetteer or to ascribe it to an acknowledged historical or geographic framework. The Political Culture of Ancient China. Prince- ton University Press, In The Everlasting Empire, Pines seeks to do just that, bringing big thinking back into Chinese imperial history.

Ranging widely over the full ambit of imperial history, Pines traces the evolution and persistence of three crucial ideological premises in Chinese political culture, which he claims were broadly shared by monarchs, elites at the political center, and elements of local society. Second, while emperors could inherit the throne regardless of their personal worthiness, their officials would be selected for their moral and intellectual excellence in devising and implementing state polices for the good of the realm. Pines maintains that the lower orders of Chinese society internalized the hegemonic imperial ideal to such an extent that even after popular rebellions overthrew reigning dynasties, their victorious leaders established their own dynastic monarchies rather than advancing revolutionary or anti-systemic alternatives.

See a Problem?

The strength of imperial ideology, Pines argues, lay in the flexibility of its core principles, which were filled with internal paradoxes and tensions, allowing them to adapt to changing historical situations. For example, intellectuals imagined the monarchical institution as generally infallible, while assum- ing responsibility for central government functions when mediocre or mendacious rulers occupied the throne. Still, if this ideological system was so deeply riven with internal contradictions, one wonders whether these were a source of weakness rather than strength, and furthermore, whether Pines is look- ing in the right place for an explanation of the longevity of the imperial project, and overlooking the impact of institutional innovations and state-society alignments.

Since Pines does not rigorously distin- guish between political imaginaries and state capacities, he has difficulty demonstrating how universal monarchism was practically applied in the bureaucratic administration of the empire in its various institutional incarnations, and in the cores and peripheries of an empire that spanned a subcontinent.

Recapitulating the central arguments of his monographs Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intel- lectual Life in the Chunqiu Period Honolulu: Yet demonstrating the endurance of an ideology is more eas- ily accomplished than building an argument for the absolute inconceivability of a counter-ideology.

In this Book

Pines does not include any evidence that would contradict his perfectly linear explanatory framework, which began to raise doubts in my mind about its certainty and persuasiveness. In The Everlasting Empire Pines ambitiously carries his argument about classical monarchism for- ward into the first and second millennia c. It appears that Pines has selected pieces of evidence that suit his preordained conclusions, in order to present monarchism as a self-executing principle.

In most cases, he is quoting from prescriptive rather than descriptive texts, which were more concerned with outlining abstract ideals of monarchism than with their institutional applications in specific dynastic monarchies. Thanks for telling us about the problem.

Search Deep Blue

Return to Book Page. Established in BCE, the Chinese empire lasted for 2, years before being replaced by the Republic of China in During its two millennia, the empire endured internal wars, foreign incursions, alien occupations, and devastating rebellions--yet fundamental institutional, sociopolitical, and cultural features of the empire remained intact. The Everlasting Empire traces the roots of the Chinese empire's exceptional longevity and unparalleled political durability, and shows how lessons from the imperial past are relevant for China today.

Yuri Pines demonstrates that the empire survived and adjusted to a variety of domestic and external challenges through a peculiar combination of rigid ideological premises and their flexible implementation. The empire's major political actors and neighbors shared its fundamental ideological principles, such as unity under a single monarch--hence, even the empire's strongest domestic and foreign foes adopted the system of imperial rule.

Yet details of this rule were constantly negotiated and adjusted.

• Minuet in Olden Style.
• Drawing: Faces: Vol 1 (How to Draw & Paint).
• ;
• ?
• This item appears in the following Collection(s).
• Um Homem Mau: Aquele que encontrou a Liberdade, a Paz e a Felicidade (Portuguese Edition)!

Pines shows how deep tensions between political actors including the emperor, the literati, local elites, and rebellious commoners actually enabled the empire's basic institutional framework to remain critically vital and adaptable to ever-changing sociopolitical circumstances. As contemporary China moves toward a new period of prosperity and power in the twenty-first century, Pines argues that the legacy of the empire may become an increasingly important force in shaping the nation's future trajectory. Hardcover , pages.

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Everlasting Empire , please sign up.

The Everlasting Empire: The Political Culture of Ancient China and Its Imperial Legacy

Be the first to ask a question about The Everlasting Empire. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Apr 02, James rated it liked it Shelves: An enlightening monograph that analyses the enduring unity of the Chinese empire over two millennia and how unity was and remains a central ideological tenant of Chinese political thought.

Well-researched with an extensive bibliography and endnotes, Pines offers a concise and compact yet detailed analysis and will be beneficial in aiding a greater understanding of Chinese politics. Feb 20, Lauren Albert rated it really liked it Shelves: While I didn't really understand Pines' discussion of post-Revolutionary China, I found his discussion of the role of ideology in sustaining the Chinese Empire up to that point interesting.

Fear of chaos mattered more than desire for other things like political democracy. Sep 19, Mu-tien Chiou is currently reading it Shelves: TanTan rated it it was amazing Nov 21, Mauricio Santoro rated it really liked it Nov 05, M rated it it was amazing Mar 25, Aidas Puklevicius rated it really liked it Jul 31, Emily rated it really liked it Jan 29, Jinyi Liu rated it it was amazing Feb 28, Michael rated it it was amazing Jan 28, Xiaocong Long rated it it was amazing Jun 17, Henrik rated it really liked it Aug 14, Pjotr Gainullin rated it liked it Oct 08, Bateauxmouches rated it it was amazing Dec 29, Michael Tice marked it as to-read Jun 27, Jeremy marked it as to-read Jun 27,