Many Worlds Under One Heaven
Material Culture, Identity, and Power in the Northern Frontiers of the Western Zhou, 1045–771 BCE
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Columbia University Press
Published:20th Jul '21
Should be back in stock very soon
In the mid-eleventh century BCE, the Zhou overthrew the Shang, a dynastic power that had dominated much of northern and central China. Over the next three centuries, they would extend the borders of their political control significantly beyond those of the Shang. The Zhou introduced a political ideology centered on the Mandate of Heaven to justify their victory over the Shang and their territorial expansion, portraying the Zhou king as ruling the frontier from the center of civilization. Present-day scholarship often still adheres to this core-periphery perspective, emphasizing cultural assimilation and political integration during Zhou rule. However, recent archaeological findings present a more complex picture.
Many Worlds Under One Heaven analyzes a wide range of newly excavated materials to offer a new perspective on political and cultural change under the Western Zhou. Examining tombs, bronze inscriptions, and other artifacts, Yan Sun challenges the Zhou-centered view with a frontier-focused perspective that highlights the roles of multiple actors. She reveals the complexity of identity construction and power relations in the northern frontiers of the Western Zhou, arguing that the border regions should be seen as a land of negotiation that witnessed cultural hybridization and experimentation. Rethinking a critical period for the formation of Chinese civilization, Many Worlds Under One Heaven unsettles the core-periphery model to reveal the diversity and flexibility of identity in early China.
In a highly scholarly work, with a masterly command of archaeological detail, Yan Sun illustrates the diversity of northern China that the Zhou, following their conquest of the Shang in 1045 BCE, had to bring under control. In drawing the different groups together, the Zhou laid one of the foundations for today’s China. -- Jessica Rawson, University of Oxford
More than a refutation of the center-periphery model, Sun’s percipient study of Western Zhou’s northern frontiers points the way forward as it draws on archaeological and textual data to reveal remarkable variation in how different regions, ethnic groups, and even individuals charted their own complex responses to the Zhou presence in their lives. -- Francis Allard, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Deeply engaging, Many Worlds Under One Heaven is an important analysis of the northern frontier as controlled by the Western Zhou. Through impressive evidence, Zhou explores the larger social dynamics of antiquity. -- Constance A. Cook, author of Ancestors, Kings, and the Dao
One of the exciting developments of recent decades in the study of Western Zhou cultural history has been the discovery of numerous cultures on the frontiers of the Zhou cultural sphere. Whereas our understanding of Zhou culture was once largely limited to the capital area, Yan Sun draws on the latest scholarship to show us that the Zhou world was dynamically multiethnic and multicultural. -- Edward L. Shaughnessy, University of Chicago
Many Worlds Under One Heaven is an important and fascinating contribution to the study of Early China. It is a welcome addition to recent research and presents a nuanced and variable picture of this formative period of Chinese civilization. Sun is doing masterful work in integrating archaeological and epigraphic data with anthropological theory to deconstruct the homogeneous image of the Western Zhou. -- Gideon Shelach-Lavi, author of The Archaeology of Early China: From Prehistory to the Han Dynasty
ISBN: 9780231198424
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
336 pages