The Dragon and the Eagle: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese and Roman Empires 1st Edition by Sunny Auyang (PDF)

Description

This stimulating, uniquely organized, and wonderfully readable comparison of ancient Rome and China offers provocative insights to students and general readers of world history. The book’s narrative is clear, completely jargon-free, strikingly independent, and addresses the complete cycles of two world empires. The topics explored include nation formation, state building, empire building, arts of government, strategies of superpowers, and decline and fall.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Our age of globalization calls for a new kind of history that transcends conventional boundaries. Auyang’s comparative analysis of the largest ancient empires impressively rises to this challenge. Deftly melding a richly textured narrative of rise and fall with incisive insights informed by the social sciences, this pioneering account will be required reading for everyone interested in the nature of imperial rule and the foundations of today’s dominant civilizations.” Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, USA”In this ambitious labor of love, Dr. Sunny Auyang compares the antipodes of northern Eurasia during 1,200 years, between the State of Qin’s rise in 771 BCE and western Rome’s fall in 476 CE. Though mindful of the great humanistic traditions of China and Rome, Dr. Auyang looks instead at each civilization’s political economy, systematically contrasting statecraft, law, and money management to explain the life spans of world empires. Even newcomers to the histories of ancient Rome and China will enjoy her lucid, engaging, and judicious narrative.” Lawrence Okamura, University of Missouri, USAThe comparative study of empires has been a burgeoning field of study for the past two decades, and Auyang’s book is a worthy addition to the field. The author examines the rise and fall of both the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty of the Chinese Empire by means of a clever chronological parallel structure.As a work of comparative history of both, it is a striking piece of scholarship. – J. Tucci, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐“The dragon and the eagle” is an interesting comparison of the development of two major global empires in antiquity, the Roman Empire in Western and the Qin and Han Dynasties in Eastern Eurasia. Both empires lasted roughly 450 years, while China started about 180 years earlier.The author starts her historical analysis with the development towards the two empires in the previous centuries, the Zhou dynasty and the Roman republic respectively, and then follows the building up of the respective empires, major government tools and structures, military strategies, the make-up of societies and the economic problems and solutions thereto.On the side, it turns out that there are very interesting parallels, such as the early advantages of the former “fringe states” Rome and Qin, the later centralization of power and wealth, similar developments of bureaucracies, and the pressure from “barbarian” northern neighbours.On the other side, the author also carves out major differences, such as different attitudes towards the principle of law (troubled by Qin rigid “legalism”), individual freedom (highly valued in the Roman empire, which however had a much higher proportion of slaves), philosophy, and “nation building”. Here it might have been interesting to further explore possible reasons why the Chinese empire returned three centuries later, while the (Western) Roman Empire definitely ceased to exist.Through these comparisons, the histories of both empires are shortly narrated, so that that some buried knowledge is refreshed. It goes without saying that in order to make her point, the author sometimes makes some simplifications and sacrifices some detail not fitting into the picture.In summary, the book is very nice to read, entertaining (in particular for those interested in historical comparisons) and gives some interesting new views on the development on cultural differences.

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