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18962 results in Cambridge Histories

Page 900 of 949

  • 9 - The origins of indigenous African agriculture

    • By Jack R. Harlan, University of Illinois College of Agriculture, Urbana, Illinois
  • Edited by J. Desmond Clark
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Africa
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    25 February 1982, pp 624-657

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses ethnographic, archaeological and linguistic evidences for the origin of indigenous African agriculture, and also the development of indigenous African agriculture in the most general and tenuous terms at the present time. The direct evidence from actual plant remains to date has been very disappointing and contributes little to a solution of the problem. Indirect archaeological evidence is more abundant but always subject to errors or interpretation. The chapter focuses on a theory about plant domestication and agricultural origins, which is based on generalized models. The most characteristic feature of indigenous African agriculture is its adaptation to the savanna. Even the plants grown in the forest are largely of savanna origin, and by far the most important contribution of African crops to the world are plants adapted to the savanna zones. A small group of crops, essentially endemic to Ethiopia, was domesticated in the Ethiopian highlands.

  • 12 - Egypt, 1552–664 BC

  • Edited by J. Desmond Clark
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Africa
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    25 February 1982, pp 830-940

  • Summary

    The history of Egypt between 1552 and 664 BC, as for earlier periods, is conventionally divided up into usually sequential, numbered dynasties. These are derived from later Epitomes of Manetho's history of Egypt and usually do in fact coincide with real breaks, alterations or divisions in the line of dynastic succession. Several major factors contributed to the shaping, sustaining, and social pervasiveness of the Egyptian world-view. Tradition was an extremely important one. The governmental system enjoyed great authority because of its antiquity and supernatural implications. It was adequate to meet the perennial social and economic needs of the population and it was adept at reinforcing and enhancing its own political power. The period between 1552 and 664 BC is conventionally divided into two main phases, the New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period. New Kingdom and later relations with Libya, the other main African contact area, are one of the most intriguing and least studied aspects of Egyptian foreign relations.

  • 10 - Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period in Egypt

  • Edited by J. Desmond Clark
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Africa
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    25 February 1982, pp 658-769

  • Summary

    The Old and Middle Kingdoms together represent an important unitary phase in Egypt's political and cultural development. Divine kingship is the most striking feature of Egypt in these periods. In the form of great religious complexes centred on the pyramid tombs its cult was given monumental expression of a grandeur unsurpassed anywhere in the ancient Near East. Kerma in the Second Intermediate Period came to be an African counterpart of Byblos: an independent state beyond Egypt's political frontiers, with a court looking to Egypt as a source of sophisticated court fashion. If one considers the historical developments in Nubia in the Second Intermediate Period and the possibility that the position of Kush in the lists is a tribute to its political importance, then one might conclude that Kush was, from the outset, centred at Kerma. The implication is that Kush had emerged as a kingdom of considerable strength and importance, a counterpart to the Hyksos kingdom of the north.

  • 3 - The earliest archaeological traces

  • Edited by J. Desmond Clark
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Africa
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    25 February 1982, pp 157-247

  • Summary

    This chapter deals with archaeological studies of developing technology and culture from the earliest traces to the end of the Middle Pleistocene. The African sequence of archaeological documents is the longest known Pleistocene record. The energies of Palaeolithic archaeologists were formerly devoted primarily to the detailed study of stone artifacts but, as indicated, emphasis is steadily changing. The chapter reflects contemporary endeavour in African Palaeolithic prehistory by being more concerned with what is known of long-term developments in human ecology, technology and social grouping than with such versions of culture history as those expounded in the classics of African Palaeolithic literature. The excavation of undisturbed archaeological sites provides the crucial evidence for attempts to understand early prehistory in socio-economic and ecological terms. In Africa, prehistoric archaeology has provided an important opportunity for investigating the long-term record of the stages by which the contrast arose.

  • 7 - Political and institutional reform 1901–11

    • By Chuzo Ichiko, Center for Modern Chinese Studies, Toyo Bunko, Tokyo
  • Edited by John K. Fairbank, Kwang-Ching Liu
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of China
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    30 September 1980, pp 375-415

  • Summary

    This chapter reviews the political and institutional reforms made by the Ch'ing government after 1901 with some conspicuous points. First, there were many self-defeating contradictions among the reform plans. For example, while creating the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies in order to widen the path for the expression of public opinion as part of the preparation for constitutionalism, the government put increasingly strict controls over all expression of thought. Once the Ch'ing had accepted the idea of constitutionalism, Chinese intellectuals began to demand the immediate opening of the parliament. Secondly, all the participants in the reform programmes sought their own interest. The reforms after 1901 were promoted mainly by Jung-lu, a Manchu grand councillor, and Chang Chih-tung, Liu K'un-i and Yuan Shih-k'ai, who were Chinese governors-general. Finally in 1908, when the emperor and the empress dowager both died, and Prince Ch'un became the prince regent, Yuan Shih-k'ai was forced to retire to Honan.

  • 3 - Changing Chinese views of Western relations, 1840–95

  • Edited by John K. Fairbank, Kwang-Ching Liu
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of China
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    30 September 1980, pp 142-201

  • Summary

    Chinese views of Western relations kept changing during the 1840-95 period, with a quickened tempo after 1860. Generally, foreign policy views changed from a 'closed door' policy in the forties to the 'good faith' policy based on the Confucian principle of sincerity during the sixties. Modern diplomatic skills, especially the idea of international law, were stressed during the ensuing two decades. Power politics, particularly the concepts of balance of power and alliance with strong countries, prevailed during the eighties and nineties. In spite of all these changes, the power of conservatism remained strong. Success in the introduction of things Western into China depended in large measure on the extent to which they were compatible with this tradition. China's inertia can also be seen in the views held by some political leaders towards the West. In addition to the conservatives, many literati-officials who championed Western learning were at the same time anti-Christian. Modernization in some senses meant Westernization.

  • 4 - The military challenge: the north-west and the coast

  • Edited by John K. Fairbank, Kwang-Ching Liu
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of China
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    30 September 1980, pp 202-273

  • Summary

    By the early 1870s, the Ch'ing forces undoubtedly had acquired the capacity to suppress rebellion in most areas of China proper. However, it remained questionable as to whether they could stand up to foreign invaders on the coast or even deal with rebels in the difficult terrain of the North-West or Central Asia. Before imperial China's forces could get to Sinkiang, they had first to overcome the Chinese Muslims in Shensi and Kansu. The Sino-French War of 1884-5 was the first external test of China's new military and naval programmes of the past two decades. From beginning to end, the Sino-Japanese War had been an unmitigated disaster. In the peace negotiations, China's most effective bargaining point was not the remaining strength of her military and naval forces, but rather Japanese guilt over the wounding of Li Hung-chang by a Japanese fanatic.

  • Bibliographical essays

  • Edited by John K. Fairbank, Kwang-Ching Liu
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of China
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    30 September 1980, pp 603-626

  • Summary

    This bibliography presents a list of titles that help the reader to understand the China's modern economic history. Published sources for the economy in the late Ch'ing period include two large collections of documents photographically reproduced from the archives of the Tsungli Yamen and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Chinese diplomatic history must begin with documented studies in the several major languages, and be supplemented by consideration of the Chinese social, political, economic, intellectual and psychological milieu which set the stage for China's foreign relations. Historical sources for the study of China's perception of Western relations during the late Ch'ing period are rich but scattered. The main source materials on the outspoken scholar-officials are their own writings. The reform movement of the 1890s is an under-researched subject. The military system of the late Ch'ing was outlined in 1930 by Wen Kungchih.

  • 8 - Government, merchants and industry to 1911

  • Edited by John K. Fairbank, Kwang-Ching Liu
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of China
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    30 September 1980, pp 416-462

  • Summary

    Many scholar-officials' main emphasis was on modern industry. They generally assumed that commercial enterprises could at best play a supporting role. Influential officials who became major sponsors of modern enterprise were especially partial to industry. From the early 1870s, Li Hung-chang argued that guns and gunboats alone did not make a nation strong; their operation required the support of industry in manufacturing, mining and modern communications; industry would create new wealth - a further source of national strength. Chang Chih-tung, too, realized the link between military power and economic development. Chinese promotion of modern enterprise in the late nineteenth century was inspired by the political necessity of quickly achieving respectable national strength. This fundamental goal united government officials of various persuasions in a common commitment to industrialization. A few modern enterprises were able to avoid either official sponsorship or comprador management. Hua-hsin was in fact a private enterprise in which official and merchant shareholders collaborated as individuals.

  • 5 - Intellectual change and the reform movement, 1890–8

  • Edited by John K. Fairbank, Kwang-Ching Liu
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of China
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    30 September 1980, pp 274-338

  • Summary

    The contribution of the Wan-kuo kung-pao to the intellectual ferment of the reform period should be gauged by the kind of influence it had on contemporary Chinese literati. The publication of the reformist writings in the early 1890s contributed to the changing intellectual climate in the decade, their aggregate impact was far less than that of an intellectual and political movement started at the time by a group of young Cantonese scholars whose leader was K'ang Yu-wei. From the very beginning, K'ang saw the threat of Western expansion as not simply socio-political but cultural and religious as well. After the Ch'ing court clamped down on K'ang Yu-wei's campaign in Peking in early 1896, the reform movement had to confine its activities to ideological propaganda in Shanghai and Macao in order to gain public support. But new developments were meanwhile under way in Hunan, which soon brought the centre of the reform movement to the capital, Changsha.

Page 900 of 949