The Origins of History in China and Other Essays

Naitō Konan, the Kyoto sinologist, is best known abroad for one idea: that China's early modern age began with the Song. This book presents the short 1922 essay in which he set out that thesis, "A General View of the Tang-Song Era," together with two other studies in Chinese history.

In "The Origins of History in China," a lecture of 1915, Naitō asks what the ancient scribe-historian actually did, and argues from the ritual classics and the written character that he began as the keeper of the tally at the archery rite. In "The Legend of the Common Origin of the Jurchen Tribes" (1921) he uses Khitan records to watch a legend of common ancestry take shape within a century, and turns the case into a measure for the legends of ancient China and Japan.

Each essay is translated complete and unabridged from Japanese, with a translator's note, endnotes on names, terms and dates, and source information.