State Power in Ancient China and Rome.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (322 pages)
- Oxford Studies in Early Empires Series .
- Oxford Studies in Early Empires Series .
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 China -- 2. 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 Research -- 2. 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 Revenue. 3. 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 Rome -- 1. 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 -- 8.2. A Society of Transcendents: The Xiang'er Commentary to the Laozi -- 9. Organizing the Dead: Religion and Politics in Early China -- 10. Comparative Considerations -- Bibliography -- Index.
In a series of pioneering comparative studies, leading historians break new ground by exploring government and power relations in the two largest empires of the ancient world. They shed new light on key issues such as elite formation, the rise of bureaucracies, and the determinants of urban development.
9780190202255
State, The--History--To 1500. Imperialism--History. Rome--History--Republic, 265-30 B.C. Rome--History--Empire, 30 B.C.-284 A.D. China--History--Han dynasty, 202 B.C.-220 A.D.