44 | What About China? Part I: The Deep Currents of Chinese History ~ Yasheng Huang

On Humans

The West has ruled history — at least the way history has been written. This is a shame. To tell the story of humans, we must tell the story of us all.

So what about the rest? What themes and quirks does their history hide? And what forces, if anything, prevented them of matching Europe’s rise?

I aim to cover these topics for several countries and cultures over the next year. But I wanted to start with China. To do so, I’ve teamed up with Jordan Schneider, the host of ChinaTalk.

Our guest is MIT professor Yasheng Huang (黄亚生). Huang is the author of Rise and Fall of the EAST – one of my all-time favorite books on China’s past and present.

In this episode, we explore the deep currents shaping China’s history.

We trace the forces shaping China's early mastery of technology to its falling behind Europe in the modern era. We also discuss the surprising role that standardized exams have played in Chinese history, and why certain democratic elements in China’s past actually bolstered the emperor’s authority.

The episode covers all of Chinese imperial history, ending with a brief note on the early 20th Century. In part 2, will zoom into China’s economic miracle and its uncertain future.

NOTES

A Rough Timeline of Chinese history:

Pre–221 BCE: Disunity (e.g. Warring States)

221 BCE – 220: Unity (Qin & Han dynasties)

220 – 581: Disunity (“Han-Sui Interregnum”)

581 – 1911: Unity (Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties)

Historical figures

Emperor Wanli 萬曆帝 | Shen Kuo 沈括 (polymath) | Zhu Xi 朱熹 (classical philosopher) | Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全 (leader of the Taiping Rebellion) | Yuan Shikai 袁世凯 (military leader) | Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石 (military leader and statesman)

Modern scholars

Ping-ti Ho 何炳棣 (historian) | Clair Yang (economist) | Joseph Needham (scientist and historian) | Daron Acemoglu | James Robinson

Historical terms

Kējǔ civil service exams | Taiping Rebellion

References

For more links and some impressive graphs, see this article at OnHumans.Substack.com.

LINKS

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For other episodes on economic history, see my series on the ⁠⁠Birth of Modern Prosperity⁠⁠, with Daron Acemoglu, Oded Galor, Brad DeLong, and Branko Milanovic.