The Chinese Experience by Raymond Dawson is an old book.
Written and published in 1978 by an Oxford lecturer in Chinese history, it is an outstanding synthesis of the Chinese civilisation.
Dawson, in his earlier book Imperial China (1972), had focused on Imperial Chinese history from the Sui dynasty in AD 589 to Chien Lung in the 18th century.
In this book, he now focuses on the political, philosophical, socio-economic, and aesthetic experience of the Chinese civilisation.
The topics he covered are selective rather than exhaustive. This way, we are given, for example, a good description of the role of the emperors as the Sons of Heaven and, by way of contrast, the life of a district magistrate at the grass-roots level of administration. (P 44).
This old book is refreshing, as writers of Chinese history tend to focus on their special interests rather than broader themes nowadays.
LWH, 9 Aug 2025, Saturday