Americans are also less interested in the history of other countries and regions of the world. In American history textbooks, the description of China's history is also a simple few pages, directly describing the Yin Shang and Qin Shi Huang in american textbooks. The Logic of Western History
In the eyes of Westerners, including Lao Mei, China's "eternal emperor" Qin Shi Huang was very famous and could easily be classified as a Napoleonic figure. Both professional historians and scholars, the deductive community and film and television programs will discuss and study the life of Qin Shihuang When Americans chose the "100 people who influenced the course of human history" in the middle of the last century, they included Qin Shihuang, second only to Confucius, whose main achievement was to create a new look of China's political and cultural unity. The discovery channel of national television, a documentary about Qin Shi Huang from a purely Western perspective called "The Decryption History of Qin Shi Huang," described him as one of the most powerful figures in Chinese history. He ordered thousands of troops and horses to promote the first unification of the eastern continent and built the magnificent Great Wall. This achievement is unprecedented and will never come back.
Similarly, in American textbooks, the evaluation of Qin Shi Huang is also very high. Even in terms of national achievement, it is higher than Washington. The greatest recognition of the Americans for Qin Shi Huang and the affirmation that he ended the division of China and then the first reunification, which can be said to be consistent with China.
The United States for . After Qin Shi Huang's Eastern Expedition to the Six Kingdoms, he established the first unified feudal dynasty in Chinese history. Therefore, it is inevitable to discuss the regime of the time in American textbooks. Unlike the logic of Chinese thinking, Americans are concerned with the overall establishment of social order.
For example, "What kind of behavior did Confucius think would bring about a new social order in China?" We understand Confucianism, and the United States intends to interpret and analyze Confucianism's "contribution" to society in its essence, rather than emphasizing the core theories that Confucianism attaches particular importance to—"benevolence" and "propriety."
In Chinese history textbooks, when it comes to the Qin Dynasty, the concept that it must be "the first unified centralized state in Chinese history" does not exist in American textbooks. They explained that the Qin Dynasty was a political center, the ultimate control of the government over the country.
In other words, Lao Mei believes that the social order of the Qin Dynasty itself originated from political centralization and government control over the entire country. Among them, "centralized power" is "centralized power" in our words, which is more important than "centralized power", "autocracy".
"Government control" is somewhat pejorative, or Westerners think that in the social environment of more than two thousand years ago, even if Qin Shi Huang was the first unified emperor. Nor could he achieve the ultimate dictatorship of the state.
"Control" is a purely Westernized word, because the Qin and Han historical sources found by domestic archaeology prove that even if it was as powerful as Qin Shi Huang, it did not want to control the people. At that time, many laws and regulations were full of humanistic care, and many of them were beyond the reach of today's society.
Soon after Qin Shi Huang unified the country, he began to build the Great Wall, which seemed completely unnecessary to the United States, and many Chinese people now did not approve of it. But this does not affect the existence of the Great Wall. Significance. The Great Wall has lasted for more than 2,000 years. Now in the eyes of the Chinese people, this is not only a great symbol of the Chinese nation, but also an unprecedented military defense system. When it comes to Americans, the focus has changed again
The description of the Great Wall is as follows: the construction of the Great Wall highlights the absolute advantages of the distribution of social resources under the concentration of power. To be fair, we Chinese when analyzing the Great Wall, we rarely think from this perspective, but more from the symbolic meaning and practical role. However, Lao Mei's words are not unreasonable. At least this was the basis of the Central Plains that Qin Shi Huang completed at that time
After the unification of China, the population of the Qin Dynasty was about 25 million. According to this calculation, the population of the Central Plains at the end of the Warring States period was about 30 million, and the population of the Qin Dynasty was about 5 million. Due to the large population, it is difficult to sustain the construction of several major projects. For example, the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang required more than 700,000 people to build, equivalent to 15% of the population of the Qin state. If you really want to do this, it is estimated that Great Qin is not far from the fall of the country.
American textbooks from the point of view of the interpretation of the construction of the Great Wall of the Moon exist doubts and doubts about the construction of this Qin Dynasty. The significance of China's existence of the Great Wall is often greater than that of the Great Wall itself.
In the history of the Western tradition, it is difficult to build a building on an excessive scale, so he will be shocked by the majesty of the Great Wall. Therefore, it is natural to have a "unique" perspective to study the reasons why the Great Wall was built. In contrast, in China's history, a variety of large-scale projects have emerged in an endless stream, and Chinese have become accustomed to it
Finally, let's look at how American textbooks discuss the demise of the Qin Dynasty. In 206 BC, the people finally overthrew the rule of the Qin Dynasty because of their heavy military service.
Personal point of view: Whether Qin Shi Huang is meritorious or not, we cannot evaluate it, but the United States does not have the profound cultural heritage of our country. Is this envy?