This summer, a senior official working at the United Nations came to Beijing to attend an academic forum, and he wanted to take the opportunity to deepen his understanding of China, so he tried to find a "book on China written by Chinese scholars" suitable for readers like him, but he was disappointed that he could not find it.
Of course, it is not true that there are no such books, and Chinese scholars have written a lot of books about China, but why do foreigners' efforts to find books end in vain? On the one hand, although there are relatively few Chinese books entering the English book market, the main reason is that the big topic of "About China" is integrated into a medium-sized and concise book, so that readers can establish a comprehensive and summarized understanding framework in a short time, and then gradually penetrate into other aspects according to their own time and interests... There are indeed very few books that can play this role, especially those written by Chinese scholars.
China is too big, the history is too long, "about China" can be about Chinese history, Chinese culture, Chinese civilization and the Chinese nation, or about Chinese politics, China's economy, Chinese military, Chinese science and technology, Chinese diplomacy, etc. With 200,000-300,000 words to write about any aspect, it can only be an introduction; therefore, when trying to use such a medium space to directly touch on the grand topic of "about China" and not just "Chinese history" or "Chinese economy", we cannot stay in a thousand and ones. The surface of all aspects must be as deep as possible into the core part of the problem, focusing on the most essential few issues.
Therefore, based on the observer network's "70 Years of Dialogue and 5000 Years" series of articles, after more than 4 months of writing and more than 4 months of editing, this 265-thousand-word book published by the 265-word "China under Heaven - Vast Land Giants and Settled Civilization" published by the century-old store of the Chinese publishing industry was finally released in the last week of 2019.
After the final draft, Mr. Gu Qing, editor-in-chief of Zhonghua Bookstore, said: If summarized in one sentence, this book is about "Chinese logic".
In one word, one hammer is finalized. A special civilization, a special country, naturally has its own special set of logic, which is not enough to explain its unique continuity, growth and new revival. The compilation of this book does adopt a typical theoretical construction method - starting from a few basic concepts and the basic relationship between each basic concept, through logical deduction, a set of theoretical frameworks can be summarized and explained by the historical movement of Chinese civilization. As long as this theoretical framework achieves logical self-consistency, it is equivalent to a theorized "Chinese logic", a theoretical expression of a unique logic inherent in the historical movement of Chinese civilization for thousands of years.
Of course, theory and logic are discussed in the context of civilization, the history and reality of the country, this book through the brightness of the historical narrative, the width of the civilization contrast and the depth of the perspective of reality greatly enriched the color of the whole picture, taking into account both theoretical and readable aspects, and then after months of meticulous crafting by the excellent editors of the Zhonghua Bookstore, finally created a suitable for all kinds of people to read "Chinese scholars written about China book.".
Synopsis of the book
The first chapter deals with the "Vast Land Giants."
First, the basic concepts of dual forms such as settlement and wandering, civilization and barbarism, order and movement, symbiosis and competition, and heaven and earth are defined as tools for theoretical analysis in subsequent chapters. Next, it is explained that the "Guangtu" based on the unique natural geographical environment Chinese and the giant clan formed by the Chinese through long-term and large-scale ethnic integration merged into the Guangtu giant clan as one of the unique characteristics of Chinese civilization. In the conceptual system of this book, the Guangtu giants are the spatial characteristics of Chinese civilization, which continues to this day is the temporal characteristics of Chinese civilization, and the more essential attribute behind these two characteristics is the world-class settled civilization. At the end of the first chapter, the book explains in detail what a sedentary civilization is and what characterizes it.
The second chapter deals with the world-type settled civilization.
The formation of the Tianxia-type settled civilization is rooted in the "civilization cluster" formed in the land of China in the late Neolithic period, which has been comprehensively proved by multiple disciplines such as history, archaeology, anthropology and genetic biology. The Tianxia-type settled civilization centered on the Central Plains was formed through the continuous expansion of the circle of settled civilization and the continuous absorption and integration of the surrounding wandering civilizations. A history of ancient Chinese civilization is the history of the construction and formation of the Tianxia-type settled civilization. After the formation of the Tianxia-type settled civilization, there was a uniqueness that distinguished it from other types of civilizations in terms of politics and economy, such as dualistic society, basic economic zones, and Tianxia-type economies. Since then, the settled civilization and the wandering civilization have been clearly distinguished, and after developing their own national forms, they have evolved into two kinds of countries, "residence" and "traveling".
clause
Talk about the growth of civilization
Three chapters.
From the "civilization cluster" of pluralism and integration, through the evolution of states to kingdoms, the first great unification was finally achieved during the Zhou Dynasty. The Zhou Dynasty's policy of "feudal relatives, with the feudal screen Zhou" was an unprecedented scale of expansion of the settled civilization, and its political strategies of "concording all nations" and "ruling the world by virtue" were established as a system of world political historical significance, thus laying the foundation for the country under the heavens. With the decline of the Zhou Dao and the collapse of the liturgy, the Hundred Sons and Hundred Families came into being, responding to the first disintegration of the world order in different ways.
The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period included three major historical movements, namely, the annexation and concentration of nations, the racial integration of barbarians and the expansion of the scope of settled farming societies, which laid the foundation for the establishment of a unified state of the Qin and Han Dynasties. The establishment of the Qin Dynasty was a revolution against aristocratic feudal autocracy, which gave birth to the world's first state to establish a modern political system; the establishment of the Han Dynasty marked the rise of the lower class and set a precedent for the establishment of the lower class.
Chapter 4 deals with the forging of civilization.
With the emergence of large-scale territorial states, until the establishment of the tianxia state, from the Spring and Autumn Warring States period onwards, the choice between the two political systems of the county system and the feudal system became a difficult problem. The Qin Dynasty rebelled and divided the world into dozens of counties; however, in the history since, the feudal system has periodically returned to the tide. Around which of the two is better and which is inferior, the scholars and masters have debated for two thousand years, the more famous of which are Liu Zongyuan's Gongtianxia Theory and Gu Yanwu's Yufeng Yu County Theory.
At the same time, the world's state bureaucrats and doctors' careers and the private merchant groups' pursuit of interests in the business also constitute a pair of games; although in a short period of time, the two will confront each other, and the cause will crush the business, but in the long history, the two complement each other and support each other. Especially when the cause of the country includes the promotion of business development, the goal of the world's state and the world-type economy is in line with the goal, and the national economy will take off.
The third contradiction is to fight the world and sit in the world, the world-type settled civilization itself determines that after fighting the world, it must be changed to sitting in the world, and it is more difficult to keep the formation than to create. The most successful example of sitting in the world in history is The rule of Zhenguan by Tang Taizong, and the biggest transformation from fighting the world to sitting in the world is Kublai Khan's creation of the Yuan Dynasty.
Chapter Five deals with the clash of civilizations.
Since the beginning of the 16th century, Chinese civilization began to meet with Western civilization, and unlike the thousands of years of collision, symbiosis and integration between the Central Plains and the grasslands, the collision between the Central Plains and the ocean had the nature of two "tianxia" encounters from the beginning; and soon after the encounter, there was what the academic circles called the "great divergence" of eastern and western development. As a kind of nomadic society, the maritime peoples take the sea as the world, from the Mediterranean Sea in the early years, to the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean in modern times, and finally through the great navigation to create a unified global ocean.
The most essential difference between the two "worlds", two civilizations, and two "hegemonic" histories of the East and the West can be attributed to the difference between orderism and movementism. The three "deep breaths" of Western civilization—the barbarian invasion of the Roman Empire, the Crusades, and the Great Voyages—were typical of movementism; and the discoveries of modern science and the occurrence of the Industrial Revolution were, in the final analysis, the products of movementism.
Chapter VI deals with the restoration of civilization.
It first explores the success of the industrial revolution in Britain and Europe and the nature of industrial capitalism, and then explains the long-term unsuccessful failure of China's industrial revolution and the basic laws of industrialization of agricultural society. Under the strong impact of Western movementism, the orderliism adhered to by China's upper class has fallen into a dangerous situation of total collapse; Marxism, as a kind of movementism of the lower class, a poor version of the modernization program, has crossed the upper society and directly entered the lower class after being introduced to China, and has been combined with the inherent movementism of the lower class society in China, directly contributing to the founding of the lower class society with the "revolutionary peasant" as the main body.
Contemporary China, 70 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, is still the continuation and development of historical China, and still remains on the extension line of China's 5,000-year history; the occurrence of the "Chinese miracle" is essentially the successful industrialization and modernization of a modern country on the scale of a vast earth and a giant family, and high-speed economic growth is the full release of the inherent potential of the world-class economy under the two external conditions of enjoying a peaceful environment and political stability. Different from the popular "market economy theory", "socialism theory" and "industrial revolution theory" and other explanatory theories on the "Chinese miracle", this book puts forward the "theory of civilization rejuvenation", and creates conceptual tools such as the vast land giants and the world-class settled civilization, the tianxia state and the world-class economy, the grassland wandering civilization and the marine wandering civilization, the orderism and the movementism, etc., according to which a relatively complete theoretical system with certain explanatory power is constructed, revealing the "Chinese logic" inherent in the historical movement of Chinese civilization for thousands of years.
postscript
This book was written to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China as a dialogue between 70 years of contemporary China and 5,000 years of history, so although I am responsible for all the contents of the book, this book belongs to this era.
Its birth is inseparable from the observer network, a new media that has always held high the banner of "China Care, Global Vision" since its inception and its influence has grown by leaps and bounds. The large number of news and review products produced by the website every hour of the day, as well as the wonderful speeches of the website observers and many netizens in the comment area every hour of the day, most truly reflect the style of the times and the changes in ideological trends. The pertinent criticisms and valuable suggestions made in response to the "70 Years of Dialogue and 5000 Years" series of articles have always promoted the construction and improvement of the theory of this book.
Its birth is also inseparable from the Institute of Chinese Studies of Fudan University, which has always had a clear stance, vitality and talent gathering since its inception, and academia has always been in the footsteps of the times. As the only think tank with the name of "China Research Institute", its founding purpose naturally contains the requirements of the era of "books written by Chinese scholars on China".
The Zhonghua Book Company, a well-known publishing institution with a history of more than 100 years, decided to publish this book in the name of "Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China" shortly after the series of articles was serialized, and invested resources in professional editing, which was a decisive action to push this book to the forefront of the times in one fell swoop.
The reason why the forces of these aspects can invariably come together and can closely cooperate in the writing, revision and editing of this book in just a few months is, in the final analysis, the great moment of the 70th anniversary of the birth of the People's Republic of China. Without the historical height brought about by the great success of the People's Republic of China in the past 70 years, it would be difficult to have the self-confidence and calmness necessary for dialogue among civilizations and historical dialogue, and of course, it would be difficult to have the unity of heart and mind and the same goal of all parties necessary for the process of writing, revising and editing this book.
This book is written to all readers who are committed to knowing and understanding historical China and contemporary China, hoping that after reading it, readers will understand why contemporary China is the continuation and development of historical China, and why the revival of this great civilization is unstoppable.
I hope that history will remember that such a book is just as wonderful as the era to which it belongs.