Five Thousand Years of Chinese Politics

This book recounts the rise and fall of successive dynasties, what is commonly known as political history. Organized by era, it examines the successes and failures of political change from ancient times through the Republic of China.

Ideas for reforming society emerged as early as the era of the pre-Qin philosophers, but progress ebbed and flowed, and reform remained limited until the end of the Western Han, when Wang Mang finally launched his reforms. Their failure led to the political maxim, “It is better to bring peace to the realm than to govern it, and better still to make peace with the realm.” For a time, no one spoke again of fundamental reform.

Yet society is always changing, and its ills inevitably give rise to another wave of reform. Thus the cycle of order and disorder has continued for five thousand years, almost like a law of history.

As the scholar Lü Simian put it, only by understanding the truth of political evolution can we know how today's circumstances came about and make informed guesses about the future.