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China Construction Kit

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2016 3:23 pm
by Ketumak
I'm surprised this hasn't been posted about yet, perhaps it's not widely known, but Zompist's China construction kit is now out!

I've bought a copy, as its release is quite timely for my own work. The idea of the book is to introduce the reader to new models of language, culture and history, to get us thinking in new ways for our own conlanging and conworlding. I've only read the history section as yet, but so far, so good.

China has a lot of history, of course, which I guess is a problem for the writer of an introduction/overview - how much detail to put in? I'd say the level of detail in the book is about right. There's interesting stories about individual emperors and pauses now and again for an overview of the general direction of Chinese history.

From flicking through, I'm looking forward to the language section, with sketches of the modern and classic languages and the culture section. I was just wondering if anyone else has bought it yet and what your reactions are.

(Mods feel free to move if you think this belongs in another forum)

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 8:58 am
by Salmoneus
Ketumak wrote:I'm surprised this hasn't been posted about yet, perhaps it's not widely known, but Zompist's China construction kit is now out!

I've bought a copy, as its release is quite timely for my own work. The idea of the book is to introduce the reader to new models of language, culture and history, to get us thinking in new ways for our own conlanging and conworlding. I've only read the history section as yet, but so far, so good.

China has a lot of history, of course, which I guess is a problem for the writer of an introduction/overview - how much detail to put in? I'd say the level of detail in the book is about right. There's interesting stories about individual emperors and pauses now and again for an overview of the general direction of Chinese history.

From flicking through, I'm looking forward to the language section, with sketches of the modern and classic languages and the culture section. I was just wondering if anyone else has bought it yet and what your reactions are.

(Mods feel free to move if you think this belongs in another forum)
Of course, if anyone is serious about this, there are professional alternatives available.

I would just like to point out the common myth here though, that China has for most of history been the world's leading civilisation. In reality, that was only the case for a "brief blip" in the middle ages, and even then it would probably have been a close context between China at the Islamic world. In the classical period, the power and wealth of Rome was on an order of magnitude greater than Han china. [Eg Rome produce 83,000 tons of iron a year, 80,000 of lead, 15,000 of copper, to China's 5,000 of iron and negligible quanties of all other metals; Rome had 250,000 miles of roads, to China's 20,000; Rome twice as many miles of fully paved road than China had of unpaved roads; 900 arch bridges to china's 3; Rome had a fully professional, well-armed, battle-hardened armoured army of 350,000 men (they served 20-25 years), while China had fewer than 5,000 professional soldiers, and potentially up to several hundred thousand partly-trained never-seen-battle conscripts (they each served only 1 year) and part-time volunteer militiamen, the majority of whom didn't even wear armour. Etc etc]
- I think this idea has come about through a sort of overenthusiastic mysteries-of-the-east convention, in which a necessary correction to one popular fallacy (that China has always been as subordinate as it is now) creates an equal and opposite popular fallacy (that China has always been dominant until now).

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 2:54 pm
by Ketumak
It's interesting what you say about how we in the west currently tend to exagerate China's power. It's consistent with our over-valuing of China's contemporary power. China currently looks set for some difficult times economically. That said, I think the country is still significant enough and different enough for the CCK to be worth reading.

You're right that bigger and better guides to Chinese history are available from professional historians, but I suspect a reader would need to supplement them with a language guide from a professional linguist and a culture guide from someone familiar with that field. A serious sinologist would want to read and buy books in all three areas. With the CCK though you get an overview of all three fields in one volume, for those of us who just want that. So I think the book has a place in the market.

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 11:22 pm
by zompist
This is a rather apples-and-oranges comparison. Rome and China were rather different things, and it's hardly fair to look at the things characteristic of Rome and decide that it was better because it was more Roman.

Rome was highly militarized because it was a military empire, built on the legions, occupying a highly diverse set of foreign nations, and facing threats that were capable of dismembering the empire.

The empire looks good on a map, but the western half was barely urbanized, and was unable to support the military presence needed to keep it in the empire (and maintain all the pretty roads and cities)— especially once the military focus led to centuries of civil war. By Justinian's time, he could temporarily recapture the west with just 15,000 men. The power base of the empire was and remained the East, which was able to maintain itself for centuries longer, though with ever diminishing effectiveness.

Pre-Hàn China was also highly militarized, but this was no longer necessary at the height of the Hàn. In good times, the empire was peaceful and cohesive, and could be run by bureaucrats. China's problem was not really military... even when it was conquered, it persisted as a cultural unit and absorbed its conquerors. Its problem was that its taxation system depended on a mass of small farmers, and over a century or two land would get gobbled up by large landowners and taken off the tax rolls, leading to a vicious cycle of lower tax yields, increased taxes on the smallest farms, and then peasant revolts. This wasn't a problem that a larger army would solve.

Neither empire thus had a system to maintain itself indefinitely... but China had a cultural cohesion that allowed it to reconstitute itself periodically. It was also far more able to maintain higher density agriculture and urbanization than Western Europe was till just the last couple centuries.

As for the Islamic world, of course it was #2 for a long period of time. But despite its extent, it had about half the population, and at the time, under the Sòng, the Chinese were arguably at their height.

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 11:56 pm
by zompist
I don't have good information about iron production, so that's interesting. I'll have to look for more data. I'm not sure why you say other metals were negligible, when Wikipedia says that the Hàn produced 220 million copper coins a year.

As for bridges, surely much of this is climatic? The ancient Chinese built mostly in wood— which is why we have no ancient Chinese architecture to look at. There's an obvious reason Mediterranean cultures preferred stone: the climate didn't support as many trees. Once China had gotten rid of most of its forests, by Míng times, it made much more use of stone.

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 12:22 pm
by Hydroeccentricity
The last time I saw Salmoneus quote those exact same statistics about metal production I followed them to the source, and they were from one book by one guy. It was behind a paywall and my university didn't have a copy, so I never bothered to see where the author was getting the data from, but from his bio he seemed to be a fairly well respected (white) specialist in east Asian history. I would be interested to see where all this information is ultimately coming from.

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 10:43 am
by Aldwinkle
a fairly well respected (white) specialist in east Asian history.
What is the relevance of him being white

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 12:36 am
by Hydroeccentricity
Is it really so irrelevant whether a scholar of Chinese history is or is not from China? It doesn't preclude you from being an expert, but it's hardly race baiting to point out the fact. I also said that he seemed pretty legit, so I don't know what the beef is.

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 9:39 am
by Torco
if you had a reason to mention it, then just say the reason: if you don't, just say you said it out of habit or observance of mores or whatever. of course it could be thought of as relevant: one might expect different affectations of western and chinese scholars, for example, or, I don't know, chinese scholars might be more prone to be all chauvinistic, or less, or something: no need to get all prickly.

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 9:36 am
by Hydroeccentricity
You guys are reading way too much into this! I didn't have his name, or you would have known from that what his background was. Sheesh. :)

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 4:19 am
by Pole, the
Wouldn't non-Chinese or non-Asian fit better?

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 11:38 am
by احمکي ارش-ھجن
Aldwinkle wrote:
a fairly well respected (white) specialist in east Asian history.
What is the relevance of him being white
Seems like a suspicion of bias on part of the specialist?
People can perceive outsiders to be biased against the thing they study while insiders are biased for it.

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 2:43 pm
by Torco
Pole, the wrote:Wouldn't non-Chinese or non-Asian fit better?
who knows, depend on what the speaker meant, doesn't it ?

unless you're asking what is the orthodox way to speak, upon which the Gods of Racism smile or something. in which case... beats me!

Re: China Construction Kit

Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 3:16 pm
by Pole, the
That's why I am not asking you.