State power in ancient China and Rome / edited by Walter Scheidel.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Scheidel, Walter, editor.

Series:

Oxford studies in early empires.

Oxford studies in early empires

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Power (Social sciences).

China--Civilization--History.

China.

Rome--Civilization--History.

Rome.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (322 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Oxford University Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Two thousand years ago, the Qin/Han and Roman empires were the largest political entities of the ancient world, developing simultaneously yet independently at opposite ends of Eurasia. Although their territories constituted only a small percentage of the global land mass, these two Eurasian polities controlled up to half of the world population and endured longer than most pre-modern imperial states. Similarly, their eventual collapse occurred during the same time. The parallel nature of the Qin/Han and Roman empires has rarely been studied comparatively. Yet here is a collection of pioneering

Contents:

Cover; State Power in Ancient China and Rome; Copyright; Acknowledgments; Contents; Contributors; Chronology; China; Rome; STATE POWER IN ANCIENT CHINA AND ROME; Introduction; 1: Kingship and Elite Formation; 1. Patrimonial Politics of Complex Agrarian Empires; 2. Imperial Elite Formation and the Domestication of Aristocracy; 3. Dialogue and Negotiation: The Ecumenic Discourse on Kingship; 4. Final Reflections; 2: Toward a Comparative Understanding of the Executive Decision-Making Process in China and Rome; 3: The Han Bureaucracy: Its Origin, Nature, and Development

1. The Origin of Bureaucracy in China2. The Structure of the Western Han Bureaucracy; 3. Ranking, Recruitment, Promotion, and Performance Checking; 3.1. Ranking; 3.2. Recruitment and Promotion; 3.3 Performance Checking; 4. The Making of a Prevailing Ideology; 5. Problems of the Western Han Bureaucracy; 5.1. The Emperor and the Bureaucracy; 5.2. The Recommendation System; 5.3. The Censorial System and Flexibility of the Chinese Bureaucracy; 5.4. The "Problems" of the Clerks; 6. Bureaucracy and Modernity; 4: The Common Denominator: Late Roman Imperial Bureaucracy from a Comparative Perspective

1. Methodological Premises: Une histoire à naître? Bureaucracy as a Topic of Research2. The Origins of Roman Protobureaucratic Administration and Its Ultimate Purpose; 3. Egypt; 4. Questions of Scale; 5. Transformations in the Fourth and Early Fifth Centuries; 6. Late Roman Bureaucracy: Structures, Official Expectations, and Praxis; 7. Principal-Agent Relationships in the Late Roman Administration; 8. Spiritual Guidelines; 9. Macro Convergences, Micro Differences, and the Importance of the Meso Level; 5: State Revenue and Expenditure in the Han and Roman Empires; 1. Skeletons of Empire

2. Han Revenue3. Roman Revenue; 4. Distributional Comparisons; 4.1. Sources of Revenue; 4.2. Agency Costs; 4.3. Protection Costs; 4.4. Overall State Expenditure; 5. Outcomes; 6: Urban Systems in the Han and Roman Empires: State Power and Social Control; 1. Capital Cities; 2. "Artificial" Cities; 3. Urban-Based Administration; 7: Public Spaces in Cities in the Roman and Han Empires; 1. Introduction; 2. Cities and Their Public Buildings; 3. Public Spaces and Their Builders; 4. Cities and Their Past; 5. Conclusion

8: Ghosts, Gods, and the Coming Apocalypse: Empire and Religion in Early China and Ancient Rome1. Comparative Empires: Paired Sovereigns, Human and Divine Emperors, and Millenarian Movements; 2. The Domestication of the Ghosts: Deceased Humans, Spirits, and Ancestors in Early Chinese Religious Practice; 3. Religion and Politics in Bronze Age China; 4. The Warring States Period; 5. Rejecting the Religious Practices; 5.1. The Mohists; 5.2. Self-Divinization Movements; 5.3. State Centralization; 6. Qin and Early Han; 7. The Human Mediator of the World; 8. The Revelations of the Gods

8.1. The Taiping Jing

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed November 11, 2014).

ISBN:

0-19-755229-3

0-19-020225-4

OCLC:

894509626