【英文原著类】THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA(中国文明史).pdf

THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA
THE CIVILIZATION
OF CHINA
by HERBERT A. GILES, ., .
Professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge, And
sometime . Consul at Ningpo
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THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA
PREFACE
The aim of this work is to suggest a rough outline of Chinese
civilization from the earliest times down to the present period of rapid
and startling transition.
It has been written, primarily, for readers who know little or
nothing of China, in the hope that it may eed in alluring them to a
wider and more methodical survey.
. Cambridge, May 12, 1911.
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THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA
CHAPTER I
THE FEUDAL AGE
It is a mon thing now-a-days to meet people who are going to
"China," which can be reached by the Siberian railway in fourteen or
fifteen days. This brings us at once to the question--What is meant by the
term China?
Taken in its widest sense, the term includes Mongolia, Manchuria,
Eastern Turkestan, Tibet, and the Eighteen Provinces, the whole being
equivalent to an area of some five million square miles, that is,
considerably more than twice the size of the United States of America. But
for a study of manners and customs and modes of thought of the Chinese
people, we must confine ourselves to that portion of the whole which is
known to the Chinese as the "Eighteen Provinces," and to us as China
Proper. This portion of the empire occupies not quite two- fifths of the
whole, covering an area of somewhat more than a million and a half
square miles. Its chief landmarks may be roughly stated as Peking, the
capital, in the north; Canton, the mercial centre, in the south;
Shanghai, on the east; and the Tibetan frontier on the west.
Any one who will take the trouble to look up these four points on a
map, representing as they do central points on the four sides of a rough
square, will soon realize the absurdity of asking a returning traveller the
very much asked question, How do you like China? Fancy asking a