Book Review－－《萬古江河：中國歷史文化的轉折與開展》

The title of this book might be rendered in English something like: “Rivers of time [or: the great flow of the ages]: shifts and developments in Chinese historical culture.” Hsu Cho-yun’s 許倬雲 ambition is to describe Chinese culture/s from before the beginning (the Neolithic period) into the twentieth century. I use the odd orthography of “culture/s” to highlight the main thesis of this book: Chinese culture has always been extremely pluralistic. The Chinese have repeatedly accepted, modified, absorbed, amalgamated, and assimilated cultural trends coming from outside; at the same time Chinese culture ( “itself ” as it were) proliferated and spread, influencing surrounding peoples; and while it became narrow and rigid on occasion, it also produced movements of self-reflection and reform. As Hsu uses the concept, pluralistic culture implies a certain unity or set of common concerns within which much dynamism and difference can be seen. At the same time, however, this approach also raises the problem of whether we are talking about one culture or multiple cultures.