Preface to the Chinese Version of Cambridge Illustrated History of China

At first, I was asked to write this book in order to publish a set of illustrated history of countries around the world, facing the vast number of readers in Britain and the United States. Be concise, avoid too many unfamiliar nouns and terms, and make the best use of picture materials. Although I have written academic works as an expert in the history of Tang and Song Dynasties and compiled materials for students studying China history in universities, I have never tried to write a book about China for ordinary readers before. In order to arouse the interest of adult readers who can write at any time, I try to emphasize one or two most important issues about China: its huge area and historical continuity. These billion people-more than the combined population of Eastern Europe, Western Europe and North America-gradually think that they have the same culture and enjoy a sense of identity. How did this happen? Why don't they split into suspicious groups because of differences in dialects, religions or lifestyles like people in other parts of the world? In this book, I try to explain that there are several factors that will lead to this result, including China's geographical location, its sound and image writing system, and the long-term experience of a powerful unified regime. From a comparative perspective, the long-term nature of China's history is also very prominent.

For many years, China historians have been focusing on explaining the rise and fall of dynasties, but in most other parts of the world, this is not a dynasty, but the whole civilization. It has been found that modern historians can be traced back to Egypt, Sumerians, Greeks, Romans, Mayans, Aztecs and Incas from some concepts or systems in contemporary western countries, but no modern western country is a direct descendant of these civilizations. The population changes with the constant wave of immigration and invasion, and the new religion has a feeling of breaking with the past. How to treat the exception of China type? Has China never suffered the same devastating blow? The influx of new nationalities has never been so great? New ideas or religions have never had a great influence on people's sense of identity? Or do China people choose to pay attention to continuity where other ethnic groups pay attention to discontinuity? Although I won't leave the particularity of China's historical experience, in this book, I put more emphasis on China culture, and pay attention to the trend of continuity where other cultures pay attention to discontinuity.

When writing this book, one of the challenges I faced was to deal with these problems. I don't need to explain. Because I believe that history is full of chance. I tried to show how China people used their inherited heritage in the process of creating the society we call China in different periods, and how they put forward new ideas and carried out new practices when they desperately searched for meaning and peace, imposed their wishes or competed with their rivals to survive and develop, took care of their families and fulfilled their responsibilities. In my opinion, today's China is rooted in a complex, multi-level and dynamic history. It always has the potential to develop in an unprecedented way, which means that each stage is the essence of the story. I hope readers of this translation in China will find my interest as an outsider. Although western scholars who study the history of China use the same historical materials as China historians, their problems are different. I look forward to learning the reaction of readers in China to my efforts.