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Franke's Geschichte Des Chinesischen Reiches
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
When the first volume of Otto Franke's great Geschichte des chinesischen Reiches was published in 1930 it bore the descriptive subtitle ‘An account of its origin, nature, and development up to most recent timesx2019;. But alas, in spite of the author's prodigious efforts, the times were unpropitious, and the great design was not, in the end, to be fully realized. The first volume (Das Altertum und das Werden des konfuzianischen Staates) took the story from the earliest age down to the fall of the Han. The second volume (Der konfuzianische Staat, I, Der Aufstieg zur Weltmacht) appeared in 1936 and carried the account of China's history on through the period of division between North and South (Universalismus und völkische Krafte) to the centuries of re-unification under the Sui and T'ang dynasties (Der Sieg des Universalismus: die konfuzianische Weltmacht). In the following year came volume three, with the notes and supplementary materials to the first two.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1956 , pp. 312 - 321
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1956
References
page 315 note 1 Franke, O., ‘Einige Bemerkungen zur Anlage und Methode meiner “Geschichte des chinesischen Reiches”‘, ZDMG, XCVI, 3, 1942, 500.Google Scholar
page 315 note 2 ibid., 502.
page 315 note 3 ibid., 495 (my italics).
page 316 note 1 ‘Träger der Geschichte’, he writes, ‘sind die Menschen, aber nicht einfach als eine grosse Zahl von Einzelwesen, sondern als eine sittliche Gemeinsehaft mit einer festen Organisation, d. h. als Staat’ (I, xix).
page 316 note 2 ‘Mit dem Volke aber und ihm sogar vorauseilend, wirkt der ethisch-politische Universalismus des Staatsgedankens’ (I, 93; my italics).
page 317 note 1 Cf.Franke, , Geschichte, I, 183–4Google Scholar and 217–9, with Duyvendak, J.J.L., The book of Lord Shang, London, 1928, 82–8;Google Scholar and Waley, A., Three ways of thought in ancient China, London, 1939, 217–38.Google Scholar
page 318 note 1 Speaking of the fourth century A.D., Franke says: ‘Die Vorbedingungen zur Bildung einea Staatensystems waren wieder einmal gegeben, nur fehlten die Männer, es aufzubauen’ (II, 63). This is merely a reverse statement of the same theory.
page 318 note 2 As much of the force and flavour of these passages would be lost in translation, I have ventured to retain them in German.
page 318 note 3 As Dubs puts it, the emperor Wu ‘made continual demands upon his realm until its resources were exhausted and disorder ensued’ (History of the Former San dynasty, London, 1944, II, 7).Google Scholar See also Chavannes' comments in Les mémoires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien, Paris, 1895, I, cii–civ.Google Scholar Only once, in a discussion of the Han coinage (Geschickte, I, 330), does Franke even hint at Wu-ti's responsibility for the economic difficulties of the period.
page 319 note 1 Though cf. Geschichte, II, 549.
page 320 note 1 In his first volume there is no separate treatment of economic affairs at all. In volume II there is a chapter (Part 5, ch. 4) called ‘Verfassung und Wirtschaft im geeinten Reiche’ (i.e. the Sui-T'ang period) in which economic matters, mainly concerning foreign trade, are discussed on pp. 548–58. In volume IV there are two sections of chapters (Part 8, ch. 1B, and Part 9, ch. 4B) devoted to economic conditions under the Sung and Yüan respectively. These three sections make up a total of 40 pages out of 1,663 or less than two and a half per cent of the whole.
page 320 note 2 Some scattered references will be found in the index in volume III under the general heading ‘Adel’. Neither ‘Gentry’ nor ‘Adel’ occur as entries in the index in volume v.
page 321 note 1 Forthright statements of the opposing views will be found in Eberhard, W., Conquerors and rukrs, Leiden, 1952, 122–3;Google Scholar and in Michael's, F. introduction to Chang Chung-li, The Chinese gentry, Seattle, 1955, xvii.Google Scholar