Mar 2007, Volume 2 Issue 1
    

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  • A discussion of the concept of “feudal”
    HOU Jianxin
    2007, 2(1): 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-007-0001-0
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    The Western terms feudal  and feudalism  have been widely and improperly translated as fengjian  in contemporary China. The early Western Sinologists and Chinese scholars, including Yan Fu, did not originally make such a translation. Yan initially transliterated the term feudalism  as fute zhi in his early translations. It was not until the 20th century, when Western classical evolutionism found its way into China, that feudalism  was reduced to an abstract concept, and the Western European model was generalized as a framework for understanding development in China and the whole world. Only then did Yan Fu first equate feudalism  with fengjian,  and China was believed to have experienced a feudal society  in the same sense as Europe. From the perspective of intellectual history, using evidential and theoretical analyses, this article attempts to show that feudalism was a historical product in the development of Western Europe and existed only in Europe, fengjian  is a system appropriate only in discussions of pre-Qin China, and China from the Qin to the Qing experienced instead a system of imperial autocracy. The medieval periods in the West and in China evidence widely divergent social forms and hence should not be confused with the same label.
  • The emperor’s four bodies: Embodied rulership and legal culture in early Ming China
    WU Yanhong, JIANG Yonglin
    2007, 2(1): 25-59. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-007-0002-z
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    This essay explores how the emperor s body was perceived in the imperial rulership and treated uniquely in legal culture in early Ming China. It argues that the ruling elite articulated four types of imperial bodies, i.e., the body cosmic, the body politic, the body social, and the body physical, each of which exemplified a specific dimension of rulership. The emperor s four bodies are manifested in the imperial laws. The imperial laws place the emperor s body cosmic inferior to Heaven, ensure the emperor s sole authority in communicating with Heaven, require the officials  faithful service to the ruler, urge the ruler to observe rules, and strictly protect the emperor s physical body. The imperial laws, by regulating the different relationships in the embodied rulership, serve as the essential instrument to create the ideal cosmic order.
  • Behavior and attitude towards the world: A comparative analysis between the Cynics and the School of Zhuangzi
    YANG Juping
    2007, 2(1): 60-73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-007-0003-y
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    During the fourth and third centuries B.C., both the ancient Greek and Chinese civilizations evolved into key periods of social transformation. The Cynics and the School of Zhuangzi responded most acutely to these great social changes. Both of them denied the legitimacy of the existing political systems, denounced the upper rulers and felt disappointed at the comprehensive reality of societies, and were indifferent to fame and gain, and willing to live simply and smile at death. But compared with the Zhuangzi School, the Cynics were more extreme and defiant. Viewed from both macro and micro perspectives, the differences in civilizations, geographical conditions, and historical traditions determined the difference in behavior and attitudes of the two schools in terms of their behavior in the world. Nevertheless, their similarities outweigh their differences because of the similar development stages of their civilizations, similar socio-historical periods and similar social and living problems confronted.
  • Egyptian women’s position in the family in the time of the Pharaohs
    ZHANG Ye, LIU Hongcai
    2007, 2(1): 74-87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-007-0004-x
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    Although many scholars have assert that the Egyptian women s position in the family was high during the time of the Pharaohs, no research in China has made a comprehensive and systematic discussion over this issue so far. Based on both documents and archaeological materials, this article approaches this question in three aspects: (1) Egyptian women s position in the family economy; (2) the affection between the husband and the wife; (3) the position and role of the mother.
  • The historical trend of Ming China: An imperial agric-mercantile society
    ZHAO Yifeng
    2007, 2(1): 78-66. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-008-0004-5
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    Majority of contemporary Chinese historians have been employing a conceptual framework focusing on the difficulty of capitalistic development in China to analyze the historical trend and potentials of late imperial China. This approach based upon the presupposition of viewing the pattern of Chinese history as abnormal reflects with the remaining influence of the Western-centric methodology. Further, based upon a “normal” point of view, seven fundamental, irreversible, and systematical changes to the Ming society could be identified. By conclusion, China in the Ming period was transforming into an imperial agric-mercantile society. This process proves that late imperial China was not stagnate society without “history,” meanwhile, its pattern of development was clearly not identical to the Western style modernization progress.
  • The Treaty of Peace with Japan and the Korean truce negotiations
    SHEN Zhihua
    2007, 2(1): 88-108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-007-0005-9
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    The outbreak of the Korean War caused the U.S.A. to become determined in excluding the People s Republic of China (PRC) from the Treaty of Peace with Japan, the signing of which is hoped to be hastened by winning the Korean War. Before the signing of the treaty, the U.S.A. intentionally delayed the Korean truce negotiations in order to prevent the PRC from attending the San Francisco Peace Conference. After the signing, the U.S.A. preferred an immediate cessation of hostilities in Korea, whereas the Soviet Union and the PRC, bogged down in the Far East by the terms of the treaty, were determined to take a hard-line stance, hoping that the U.S.A. would become tied down and drained on the Korean battlefield. Thus, there was a subtle relationship between the treaty and the negotiations in the context of the Cold War.
  • From Racecourse to People’s Park and People’s Square: The historical changes and the symbolic meaning
    XIONG Yuezhi
    2007, 2(1): 101-97. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-008-0005-4
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    Shanghai Racecourse was established at 1850, it was finally transformed into People’s Park and People’s Square in 1951. The Racecourse was originally just a simple recreational center. However, with the change of its own function and the trend of thought, it changed into a casino of cheating and murder, a place of discrimination against Chinese, a stage for the imperialists to show off their power and violence and a symbol of all evil things. The appeal to change the Racecourse echoed to the demand of opposing imperialism, taking back the concession, desire for civilization and democracy. From 1930s to 1950s, even though great change took place in the ruling party and the political power, there was an obvious continuity in the domain of thought and ideology.
  • Qimeng shidai Ouzhou de Zhongguo guan: Yige lishi de xunli yu fansi (European Views of China During the Age of Enlightenment: A Historical Survey and Reflection).
    Yuan Zujie
    2007, 2(1): 109-111. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-007-0006-8
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    By Zhang Guogang and Wu Liwei. Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2006. ix, 454 pp.
  • Yuanze yu tuoxie: Meiguo xianfa de jingshen yu shijian (Principles and Compromises: The Spirit and Practice of the American Constitution).
    Deng Hegang
    2007, 2(1): 112-117. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-007-0007-7
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    By Wang Xi, Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2005. ix, 485 pp.
  • The popularization of bicycles and modern Shanghai
    XU Tao
    2007, 2(1): 117-115. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-008-0006-3
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    Taking the popularization of bicycles in modern Shanghai as an example, this article discussed the interrelationship between the development of instruments and the users by analyzing the expansion of city space, formation of the city time rhythm, changes in consumption mode of different social classes, and the competition of various transportation tools, etc. The influences on the transformation of social life in Shanghai and other cities of China were also revealed.
  • China's Search for Modernity-Cultural Discourse in the Late 20th Century.
    Zhang Xupeng
    2007, 2(1): 118-119. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-007-0008-6
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    By He Ping, Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan Press, London, 2002. vii, 228 pp.
  • The Western European witch-hunt in the 16th and 17th centuries
    LU Qihong
    2007, 2(1): 148-154. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-008-0008-1
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    The European witch-trials became numerous in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A large number of witches were imprisoned and many of them were executed at the stake. The ubiquitous social strain brought on the witch-hunt, and the witch became the scapegoat. Study on the witch-hunt provides a special perspective on the transition of Western Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.