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Talk:Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Gun Powder Ma (talk | contribs) at 12:52, 27 December 2009 (The birth defect of this 'comparison' article). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Would anyone object to this being restored?Teeninvestor (talk) 16:18, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

err... I think the answer to that would be a resounding "Yes", since it's been like 5 minutes since the AfD came back as stubify and rewrite. --Ludwigs2 16:54, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
The AFD is being reviewed currently at WP:DRV.Teeninvestor (talk) 19:32, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

second paragraph of introduction

two issues with this paragraph:

  1. using repeated references to the same source on adjacent lines is excessive. one reference to the source to the source at the end of the paragraph is sufficient, unless actual specific quotations are given.
  2. can you provide a quote from Scheidel that shows he's talking specifically about the absence of comparative analysis between Roman and Han empires, and not merely about the extent to which western scholars neglect the Han dynasty in general?

--Ludwigs2 17:00, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

first concern has been addressed. A quote from Scheidel about the lack of comparative scholarship is here:

Teeninvestor (talk) 18:29, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

well, that was pretty much a bummer. this passage seems to say:
  1. no one in the academic world is making comparisons of the RE and HD explicitly (noted both by Scheidel and Hsing I-Tien)
  2. a few people have made broader comparisons between the Greco-Roman cultural complex and Ancient China, but mostly in the realm of philosophical and intellectual history
  3. and that's a crying shame
and he's right, of course - it is a crying shame. but basically this passage translates to a delete vote on wikipedia, because it shows Scheidel bemoaning the fact that there are currently no useful primary or secondary sources on the specific topic of the article. or am I misreading it? --Ludwigs2 19:17, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you misunderstodo what he was saying. Note that he mentions there are few but not no sources for the article. Also bear in mind that this summary was written four or five years ago; many more sources have been published since, including Scheidel's own papers. Note how this passage shows the importance of this topic:

Recent macro-historical work has highlighted independent parallel movements of socio-cultural evolution in different parts of the globe (Diamond 1998). More specifically, historians of the more recent past are showing great interest in comparative assessments of Europe and China that further our understanding of the emergence of modernity and the Industrial Revolution (e.g., Pomeranz 2000).

.

He also mentions the following sources for this topic have already been published:

Hsing I-Tien 1980, an unpublished thesis, seems to be the main exception in a western language; cf. also Lorenz 1990 and Motomura 1991, and now Adshead 2000: 4-21 and 2004: 20-29 as well as Gizewski 1994 and Dettenhofer 2006 for brief comparisons of the Roman and Han empires. A recent conference focused on literary and ideological constructions of the Qin-Han and Roman empires: Mutschler & Mittag (org.) 2005 = (eds.) 2008; but see now also Mutschler 2008 (org.)

Some of these sources have already been incorporated, butmore could definitely be put into this article. Teeninvestor (talk) 19:20, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

don't get me wrong, I'm not taking a side on the issue at the moment. I'm just telling you the wikipedia facts of life. This passage is worse than useless for the purposes of the article - it's a reliable secondary source claiming that (at the time of writing, which was less than a year ago, mind you) no reliable primary sources are available. It is, in fact, precisely the kind of source I would use in an AfD to demonstrate that a topic is not notable enough for inclusion in wikipedia. You want to avoid this passage like the plague and use other/later sources that prove it wrong/outdated. This is the problem this article has had all along - you need scholarly sources that are actually making the correct comparisons, not scholarly sources that are working with one side of the equation (where you make the comparison) and not scholarly sources that are commenting on the lack of scholarly comparisons. --Ludwigs2 19:52, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Well, I merely produced it because you asked for a source talking about the lack of comparative analysis (which I don't think is something I would include in the article anyways.). As for the sources that directly compare the two empires for the article, see biblio and below. I still think this current version should be restored (see DRV).Teeninvestor (talk) 20:13, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Additional sources (mostly in German)

I searched the biblio of the article and I came up with several sources not yet int he article comparing the two mentioned by Scheidel:

Lorenz, G. 1990 ‘Das Imperium Romanum und das China der Han-Dynastie: Gedanken und Materialien zu einem Vergleich’, Informationen für Geschichtslehrer 12: 9-60 (German?)
Motomura, Ryoji 1991 ‘An approach towards a comparative study of the Roman empire and the Ch’in and Han empires’, Kodai 2: 61-69
Dettenhofer, Maria H. 2006 ‘Das römische Imperium und das China der Han-Zeit: Ansätze zu einer historischen Komparatistik’, Latomus 65: 880-897 (Seems like another German source)

Issues to be dealt with before the article is ready for the main space

A masters thesis is not a reliable source as far as Misplaced Pages is concerned and mention of Custer should be removed from the article as well as the source; this would also necessitate removing mention of Romanization which is an outdated and rejected concept in ancient history. I have taken this action myself. There is a good quote from Scheidel explaining the paucity of comparative studies of Rome and the Han Empire which I have added and goes some way to explaining why the article has so many holes.

The article is much better than the version nominated for deletion a week or so ago, but it still has problems, not least of which is that of scope. There was no Roman Empire until the Principate, under the Republic there was a de facto empire, but the article makes no effort to explain this. If the article continues to include the Republic, and I have reservations about whether that is a good idea, it needs to be made clear in the article that there was no official Empire until the Principate was established. I have to say that the article still requires a lot of work, and as such I support working on it in here rather than presenting an article to the public that we know has major problems.

I admit that my knowledge of the Han Empire is virtually non-existant, but I am fortunately more familiar with the Roman Empire. As such there are some gaping holes and imbalances in the article, not to mention some things that are just plain wring (see above regarding the Republic). For example, saying "Rome, on the other hand, never faced an enemy that posed an existential threat after 275 BCE (save for the Punic wars)" is like saying "Europe in the 20th century was a peaceful place (save for two World Wars)". The Punic Wars had a profound effect on Rome that cannot be dismissed so out of hand. If that is what Scheidel actually says it calls into question his validity, however I would not be surprised if he has been misrepresented. Aside from the Punic Wars under the Republic there were slave revolts, civil wars, military coups, the Praetorian Guard trying to control things; all of these were very serious threats to Rome.

The Monetary system section is too narrow and, sources permitting, needs to be expanded to the economy as a whole; it makes no sense to talk about coinage without reference to the economy. Trade was one area where Rome and China actually interacted; China sold silk to Rome through the Persian Empire. In exchange, Rome gave China precious metals which China lacked. This trade was so large that senators in Rome were worried that their reserves of gold and silver would dwindle and wanted to stop trade with China. Later, Rome processed the silk and sold it back to China at a much higher price. And of course, no study of the Roman Empire is complete without mentioning civil war. If the sources do not permit these gaps to be filled, it suggests that this article may not suitable for an encyclopedia.

"The Han Empire's crop was millet, a more durable crop that could be grown in more regions than Rome": I'm not even sure what that sentence means. "Specifically, both empires promoted a similar culture among the elite to foster unity and built roads and walls to enhance communications and defend against their barbarian opponents": how did promoting a culture among the elite lead to roads being built? Also, the use of barbarians is wrong. It was a derogatory term used by the Romans to describe anyone they viewed as uncivilised, and perpetuated by 19th century historians trying to justify colonialism. Some sources still use "barbarians" as shorthand, but we this article needs to be very careful about using it, and should preferably dispense with it altogether. Explain who these supposed "barbarians" were. There' s still imbalance in the article. When mentioning Rome's "burdensome state", it should be mentioned that Rome had the corn dole for around 150,000 people. Did the Han Empire have anything similar to this proto-welfare state? Do people agree with everything that Adshead says? I will have access to Scheidel's Rome and China : comparative perspectives on ancient world empires sometime next month. Nev1 (talk) 14:50, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Response

Nev1, to answer your question:

- the scope of the article technically includes the two "empires" as well as the phase leading up to their formation, which would be the Roman Republic for Rome and Warring states/Qin for China(and besides, de jure the Principate was still a "republic" and the emperor merely "first among citizens").

-The article about elites and roads was a statement by Adshead who stated two similarities about the two empires, the key word is and. The two are in no way connected.

- The Han did not have a welfare state, they had a strict laissez-faire policy except for Emperor Wu who intervened into the economy to support his wars and his laws were later repealed. (Perhaps read Han Dynasty and Economic history of China (pre-1911)#Han Dynasty for details).

-Civil war is mentioned in the article, when Adshead talks about the peaceful succession of the Han Empire compared to the frequnet military coups during the principate.

-I have added a section on trade and a section on alleged contact based on Adshead's source.

-both empires referred to the nomadic tribes that harassed them as barbarians.

-Scheidel was talking about something that threatened Rome's existence as a state. For example, even if slave revolts had succeeded, it is doubtful they would have conquered all of the Roman republic and established a "Spartacan Empire"? Teeninvestor (talk) 15:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Addressing your points in order:
  1. Nowhere is this explained in the article. Why not? It is essential to the understanding of the article and not to mention it is deliberately misleading.
  2. The sentence is riddled with misleading constructions (walls improve communication?). The "and" is in fact the problem as it implies a link. As such I have changed it.
  3. So why not mention that? It seems distinctly unbalanced to portray the Roman Empire as having a "burdensome state" when it had what was essentially a proto-welfare state.
  4. I must be suffering from text blindness, could you point out exactly what Adshead mentions civil war?
  5. As I explained, barbarian is a derogatory term that should not be used in the article.
  6. To claim, for example, that the slave revolt did not threaten the stability of the Roman Empire is to forget that Rome was a slave society. The Empire would not have been conquered, but it could have been over thrown by the slaves as the state was economically dependant on them (see Moses Finley for more on the Roman economy and the role of slavery).
And while I remember, why does the military section focus only on each armies effectiveness against cavalry? Nev1 (talk) 15:37, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Second response

  1. barbarian has been removed as a term from the article.
  2. A new sentence has been added which explains that the two states' predecessors are also discussed.
  3. Slave revolts aren't exactly an "existential threat"- it is doubtful that the revolt of ill trained slaves could have succeeded in defeating a well-trained regular army. Besides, the paragraph is based from Scheidel's source. It would misrepresent him to suggest other wise (I will scan the other sources and see what they have to say).
  4. Again, it is mentioned in Adshead's source that the Roman state's burden was higher than Han, due to higher defense expenditures(Han basically had eliminated its main threat by 100 BCE), and the proto welfare state you mentioned. But what Adshead said mainly deals with a "burdensome state" in general, primarily military.
  5. A section on military coups and pretenders were added from Scheidel's source. In addition, the state burden section was expanded from Adshead's source mentioning Rome's military mutinies and the greater burden (primarily military) of Rome(Han China had eliminated the Hsing nu as a serious threat by 118 BCE).
  6. The military section deals with how both armies handled their main opponents of nomadic cavalry, so it naturally deals with how infantry handles cavalry(though the Han did have quite a large cavalry contingent).

Teeninvestor (talk) 15:58, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Some thoughts

  1. Good, that's sorted.
  2. Better.
  3. Ok, if that's what Scheidel says we'll have to stick with it for now, but it is seriously flawed. The issue wasn't simply that of slaves defeating an army (which happened several times actually), but that if the slaves decided to secede from Rome its economy would be crippled. That is why it was described as a slave society. To characterise it as not an "existential crisis", or whatever term is used in the article", is ridiculous.
  4. State burden is a loaded term, do you mean taxation? You do realise that military mutinies were financed by the generals (or at least their wealthy supporters) rather than through taxation, right?
  5. Good, it's short but it's better than nothing.
  6. Depending which history you read the Roman Empire was eventually brought to an end by invasions from nomadic tribes (although modern academic opinion is changing more to the stance that there was continuity under the Christian hoards) but that was not necessarily Rome's greatest adversary. The Germans were a perpetual threat, the Gauls were a problem until the region was conquered, and there were rebellions in Judea, in these cases cavalry was not the main consideration.

The article still makes me uneasy as it still seems to presenting people's opinion as fact. An encyclopedia isn't meant to draw comparisons. What I think might solve this problem is to address it as a concept, or area of study. By this I mean look at how the study of Han China and Rome evolved. For example, I would propose a new opening sentence along the lines of:

A comparison between the Roman and Han empires has been suggested since Edward Gibbon in the late 18th century. This is based on the similar scale of the empires, both in size and population, as well as parallels in their rise and decline. Historian Walter Scheidel has commented that "Comparisons between the ancient Mediterranean and China in the works of Max Weber or Karl Wittfogel have had little impact on the research agenda of specialist historians in either field. As a consequence, systematic comparisons between the Greco-Roman world and ancient China have been extremely rare (relative to the total amount of scholarship in either field) and moreover almost exclusively confined to the sphere of intellectual and philosophical history."

From there it can be explained what the purpose of the comparison is – something which really should be explained in the article but isn't. I don't mean the purpose of this article, I mean why academics think it might be a useful area of investigation. This elephant in the room needs to be addressed. What can one empire tell us about the other? Is it simply that historians have found it to be a curiosity, or is it a serious area of study? Can better understanding one empire lead us to a more complete understanding of the other?

I believe the article requires a change of direction and that this should be it. It would allow us to explain the deficiencies of the sources (drawing on Scheidel's explanation that it is a generally neglected area) and explain why there are such large gaps in the article. If this were to be done properly, I would support moving the article back into main space, however this would require a substantial restructuring. Nev1 (talk) 16:29, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Well to address the remaining issues, in order for slaves to secede they would have to first defeat the army. Also, after they succeeded in their coup, the Roman military had a nasty habit of doubling their pay and doing so through higher taxes/ inflation (which is a form of taxation). There was 15,000% inflation in the 3rd century and the entire empire was basically demonetized.Teeninvestor (talk) 16:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

As to your suggestion, do you mean we add the proposed paragraph to the front, or what? I'm a bit confused by your statements above. As to your statement that this article presents people's opinions as fact, it doesn't; that's why the article is split up into several sections, each dedicated to the comparison of one scholar only, which shows that the facts in that section are the idea of that particular scholar only.Teeninvestor (talk) 16:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
My last word on slaves: you're making the mistake of thinking about slaves in military terms when they were firmly embedded in the economy. Had slaves in the Roman Empire – who worked in agriculture and were vital in the grain supply from North Africa, and often did jobs that no one would willingly do such as mining – laid down tools, the empire would have been crippled and there was not sufficient labour in the free market to substitute them, not to mention the wage inflation that would have happened. The empire could have been overthrown without a fight. That was the real threat of slave rebellions, not that they might defeat the army, but that they might leave. A battle was not important; even if the Roman army won it wouldn't matter. A dead slave can't work.
The article does sometimes slip into presenting people's opinions as fact, for example the following is given as gospel truth "In military terms, the Han foot soldier was better armed and equipped than his Roman counterpart to deal with cavalry, due to the Chinese crossbow which was deadly to horsemen". It may well be, but this is in fact Adshead's opinion.
I suggest that something like what I suggested should be the opening of the article to make it clear that there are no stone cold comparisons between the two empires, but that it is an area of study that is still expanding. But my suggestions are more substantial than adding s a couple of sentences to the lead. The historiography section needs to be expanded; Gibbon was one of the first, but when did it become popular to compare the two? What are the problems involved in doing so? What are the benefits? Then the article needs to be broken down by subject area rather than author. We could, for example, have a section on the economy. There could be details of what they traded with each other, Adshead's argument that the staple crop was the most significant difference between the two economies (presumably meaning they were in fact very alike), but that the monetary system differed although Scheidel highlights the similarities in that they both suffered from the debasements of the metals in the coins towards the end of the empires. Nev1 (talk) 17:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Well the article has been restructrured again and I think I've taken in all your suggestions.Teeninvestor (talk) 17:22, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Petition of editors who think the article is ready for mainspace

If you believe the article is currently ready for mainspace and should be there, sign below:

Teeninvestor (talk) 19:58, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Petition of editors who do not think the article is ready for mainspace

Oppose:The article still bears the main author's intention of proving who is "superior" (and given the one-sidedness of the first version it would have been surprising otherwise). It is already hard enough reading uninformed opinions by Adshead and Scheidel on the Roman Empire which are not shared by the majority of their colleagues (but which are now made unaussailable due to the unavoidable, but inherently bad design of the article that only those authors who do direct comparisons are to be quoted), but selective reading and quoting makes it even worse. For example, why is the article silent on areas where the Romans were pretty advanced, such as their road and sea lane system (Adshead 15f.) or the great Roman building activity in contrast to the paucity of Han Chinese archaeological remains (Adshead 16f.). "Alleged contacts" btw is a extreme minority opinion refuted by all scholars as mere conjecture and thus should not be included according to WP guidelines. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:52, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

The birth defect of this 'comparison' article

It should be stressed that the AfD guidelines laid out for this 'article', namely that only those (few) scholars who make a direct comparison between the two empires, are allowed to be referred too, have two grave consequences which make the article practically by default a piece of uninformed and outdated opinions.

  1. Uninformed views: It allows experts of one side, but amateurs of the other, to be given a podium where they speak about a field in which they don't have any formal training at the expense of the real experts. Thus, sinologists like Adshead or classicists like Scheidel are allowed to talk at length about the Roman Empire respectively Han China. Whereas the mass of the real experts are to be disregarded because they are only concerned with with one or the other empire.
  2. Outdated views: It gives precedence of outdated views over current research just because the former happen to be quoted somewhere in a direct comparison, while the latter not. For instance, Adshead (15f.) gives the road length of the Imperium as 48.500 miles, relying on the sinologist (!) Needham there. That would be twice as much as Needham's figure of 22.000 miles for Han roads. But the lead of Roman roads makes it clear that the overall length of Roman roads was 250.000 miles, and that the 50.000 miles only applied to the paved, all-weather roads (which the Han did not have). And that beyond the mere quantitative, the quality of the Roman road system was superb, too. These up to date figures, however, cannot be included because they were made with no relation whatsoever to the Han.

Conclusion: The only acceptable remedy of this intrinsic dilemma with the 'article' is to allow research done separately on each of the empires to be included again. But then, we would immediately face the original situation of synthesis and original research by juxtaposing unrelated pieces of information. Therefore, given the insolvability of this 'comparison', I don't hesitate to repeat my vote of strong delete. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:52, 27 December 2009 (UTC)