Why Empire? Rethinking Chinese History Through the Lens of Finance (Why China Series)

Straight to the point, sharp perspective. However, we cannot escape this fate.

Very good. The Qing Dynasty took China's feudal autocratic system to its extreme. It can be said to be a dynasty that brought China's traditional system to its full potential!

Apart from anything else, the opening chapter of this book is very interesting, which attracted me, otherwise I would not read this kind of book. As for the content, I don't know much about finance and I don't study history, so I don't know if it's well written, but I feel it's pretty good anyway.

This book is very interesting! Teacher Liu Shougang interpreted Chinese history from a financial perspective. His unique perspective allowed me to see another side of history. The content in the book is easy to understand, even for people like me who don't know much about history. And I especially like the part about the changes in the fiscal system in the book, which made me understand the economic reasons behind many historical events. I think this book is worth reading and recommend it to you!

Apart from the fact that it's hard to deny Shang Yang's innocence, and the love that gives rationality to emperors and others' exploitation of the lower class people, the rest are pretty good. It answers some of the historical myths. I used to not understand why I kept going on even though I knew it was a dead end, but now I probably understand.

Awesome, a divine book, great needless to say.

Taxpayers, tax land, tax merchants; city-states, empires, and modern countries. The author uses these six concepts to explain the development of China's financial history in an easy-to-understand manner. Whenever financial means (in fact, the core is the distribution system) cannot match the production relations at that time, it is a precursor to the collapse of the empire. In order to maintain the centralized jurisdiction over the vast land, there must be a large set of bureaucratic teams to maintain the operation of the system. This also led to a catastrophic U-turn. Even if the rulers realized the mismatch between finance and production relations in the mid-term, no matter whether they were forward-thinking ministers, powerful executive monarchs or a wise and wise combination of kings and ministers, there was nothing they could do.

The ideas of this book tend to be left-wing social democratic, with a strong political consciousness. But as a historical study it provides another perspective, dissecting the financial impact on the empire. To sum up, it is a very good book. I highly recommend you to spend your spare time studying it 👍

It was the first time I discovered that imperial finances were so important. The explanations in this book were simple and in-depth, allowing me to understand why many historical phenomena happened.

It's okay, but I think some parts were repeated three times, so I just thought I'd seen it.