Michael Loewe calls on literary and material evidence to examine three problems that arose in administering China's early empires. Religious rites due to an emperor's predecessors must both pay the correct services to his ancestors and demonstrate his right to succeed to the throne. In practical terms, tax collectors, merchants, farmers and townsmen required the establishment of a standard set of weights and measures that was universally operative and which they could trust. Those who saw reason to criticise the decisions taken by the emperor and his immediate advisors, whether on grounds of...
Michael Loewe calls on literary and material evidence to examine three problems that arose in administering China's early empires. Religious rites due...
This book, first published in 1974, studies the historical development of China during the Western Han dynasty (202 BC-AD 9), a time of great intellectual, religious and political change. The struggle between Reformists and Modernists is analysed using texts contemporary to the time, and this struggle was a key point in Chinese history, leading as it did to enormous change, including to economics and foreign policy.
This book, first published in 1974, studies the historical development of China during the Western Han dynasty (202 BC-AD 9), a time of great intel...