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34 results

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  • Chapter 16 - Agriculture
  • from Part 2 - Society and Realia
  • Edited by Albert E. Dien, Stanford University, California, Keith N. Knapp
  • Book: The Cambridge History of China
  • Published online: 28 October 2019
  • Print publication: 07 November 2019, pp 355-373
  • View extract

    Summary

    Almost everything we know about agriculture during the Six Dynasties comes from one landmark work, the Qimin yaoshu (Essential Techniques [or Arts] for the Common People), completed sometime between 533 and 544. The author, Jia Sixie, was an estate owner and practicing farmer who had served the Northern Wei government as a middle-level official.

    It may seem an exaggeration to claim that an agricultural treatise should be classed among the written masterpieces of the Six Dynasties. The author of the Qimin yaoshu does not dazzle his readers with poetic ingenuity, nor does he expound subtle aesthetic or philosophical theories, nor offer esoteric instruction in the arts of transcendence.

  • 6 - Where Did the Animals Go?
  • Edited by Roel Sterckx, University of Cambridge, Martina Siebert, Dagmar Schäfer, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin
  • Book: Animals through Chinese History
  • Published online: 08 December 2018
  • Print publication: 13 December 2018, pp 118-138
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  • 4 - Technological transitions
  • from Part One - Global matrices
  • Edited by Jerry H. Bentley, University of Hawaii, Manoa, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, University of California, Los Angeles, Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
  • Book: The Cambridge World History
  • Published online: 05 May 2015
  • Print publication: 09 April 2015, pp 76-106
  • View extract

    Summary

    This chapter proposes a linked sequence of vignettes, chosen to highlight some typical early-modern forms of encounter and transition, while suggesting the diversity of responses. It explores how the rise of early-modern silver trade affected technological practices and meanings at different points along the global network. The chapter deals with China to consider transitions in its biggest industry, textiles and the impact of China's own 'cotton revolution', which began around 1300. It contrasts two cases of import substitution, where European technicians learned to imitate Asian technologies that were draining silver from national coffers. Porcelain was reinvented de novo in eighteenth-century Europe, without any direct transfer or even understanding of the Chinese technology. Calico-printing, in contrast, involved a slow infusion of Asian skills, materials and experts into Europe. Finally, the chapter examines how successfully world-history approaches challenge master-narratives of Western exceptionalism, pointing to some troublesome limitations.

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