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中古中国门阀大族的消亡
中古中国的门阀大族主导了中国数个世纪，关于他们在十世纪的完全消失，长期以来困扰着历史学者。在本书中，谭凯利用新的数据手段分析了大批量的史料，解开了他们消失的谜团。他通过所掌握的地理信息系统（GIS）和社会网络分析手段，系统地探究了近数十年前出土的数千方碑志，其中大部分从未被学者研究过。谭凯广泛地采用了摘自墓志、散文和诗歌中的轶事，来丰富其论证，从而将一千年前的男女形象变得鲜活起来。《中古中国门阀大族的消亡》揭示了在七至八世纪的社会、经济和制度变迁下，唐代门阀大族比我们之前所认为的更加成功。只有在880年黄巢占领长安后伴随而来的三十年大动乱时期，他们的政治影响力才因大范围的肉体消灭而崩溃。
320 pages, Hardcover
First published July 28, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 25, 2020
Every so often you come across a book that completely changes your perception of history; this was one of those books. For more decades than I choose to reveal, I have been a believer that the fall of China's glorious Tang Dynasty was due to the An Lushan Rebellion (ALR) of 755--even Steven Pinker The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined wrote that the An Lushan Rebellion "was no less than 'the worst atrocity' in world history in terms of overall deaths....'" (as quoted on p. 230 of Tackett). Not true.
Tackett, in one of the most interesting uses of AI I have seen to date, established a databank of all known 9th century excavated epitaphs, from which he has extracted and analysed and concluded that although the 8th century ALR was devastating, it was the events of the late 9th and early 10C which brought about the catastrophic fall of the glorious Tang. "Although there had been bloody purges earlier in the dynasty, the late-ninth and early-tenth-century political violence was particularly devastating because it came in multiple waves and was accompanied by decades of warfare and mayhem affecting the entire empire" (p. 205).
The slow start of this book had me thinking "OK, interesting but not very exciting--3 stars" but as the evidence slowly builds, one realises that Tackett and his research has forced us to completely re-think this period of Chinese history.
By focusing on the tomb epitaphs (and some spirit road epitaphs) of the Chinese elite population that served as the empire's leading clans (and hence its bureaucrats and officials), the story is revealed.
In summary, a number of clans had risen to power from around the end of the Han Dynasty (3C) to establish themselves as the ruling elite of China, and although their original power base may have been their land holdings as rural estate owners, in time as they moved towards the capital (Chang'an/Xi'an) and its near-by neighbour Luoyang, it became 'education over land ownership' that gave them their status--not just because of their proximity to the imperial family but also because it enabled them to congregate geographically to create powerful networks that were supported through intricate marriage alliances. Such alliances offered patronage opportunities that kept these elite in power even as their numbers swelled (due to the large size of the families given China's custom of recognising even the sons of concubines as legal sons of the head of the family).
Their congregation in the two cities (Xi'an-Luoyang) and the corridor that connected them, meant they were concentrated when the renegade Huang Chao swept through China in 880, crippling in the end virtually the entire empire. Unlike An Lushan, he was initially uninterested in establishing a new dynasty, so peasant and elite alike fell under his armies' swords.
The devastation was so extreme, it generated poems and idioms (such as 'before the upheaval' and 'after the upheaval') that write of spoliation, isolation, death, cannibalism, groves of mulberry trees going untended, and foxes and rabbits inhabiting the capital cities' ruins. But ironically, not in the volume that the An Lushan Rebellion generated, because far fewer literati elite survived Huang Chao's swords to record the horrors of the period. Those few that did survive often did so because they had been assigned to bureaucratic positions in distant provinces. It was from these handfuls of survivors that the successive Song Dynasty was able to rebuild the nation.
Anyone reading this excellent, well-written book will find themselves re-thinking the Tang-Song transition, Tang history, and the changes that occurred in the way China was ruled and the role of the literati throughout this period.
Fascinating charts of marriage alliances (as pieced together through the family genealogies revealed on the epitaphs) and geographical locations, plus translations of original epitaphs and literary references enrich the author's findings (and many thanks are due for including the original Chinese texts). The enriching footnotes should not be skipped over, and again, kudos for printing them at the bottom of the relevant pages. The bibliography and index are both excellent, and an appendix guides interested readers in accessing and using the database (in .mdb, Microsoft Access), available for download on the publisher's and author's web sites, together with an Excel spreadsheet with basic citation information for the epitaphs. This book has set a new standard for research, for it is not only well documented but also, most importantly, shares its ground work and makes it available for others for future research. One can finally begin to dream of the possibility of shared resources for researchers everywhere in this internet age (and wasn't this what the world-wide web was supposed to be for originally?).
Tackett, in one of the most interesting uses of AI I have seen to date, established a databank of all known 9th century excavated epitaphs, from which he has extracted and analysed and concluded that although the 8th century ALR was devastating, it was the events of the late 9th and early 10C which brought about the catastrophic fall of the glorious Tang. "Although there had been bloody purges earlier in the dynasty, the late-ninth and early-tenth-century political violence was particularly devastating because it came in multiple waves and was accompanied by decades of warfare and mayhem affecting the entire empire" (p. 205).
The slow start of this book had me thinking "OK, interesting but not very exciting--3 stars" but as the evidence slowly builds, one realises that Tackett and his research has forced us to completely re-think this period of Chinese history.
By focusing on the tomb epitaphs (and some spirit road epitaphs) of the Chinese elite population that served as the empire's leading clans (and hence its bureaucrats and officials), the story is revealed.
In summary, a number of clans had risen to power from around the end of the Han Dynasty (3C) to establish themselves as the ruling elite of China, and although their original power base may have been their land holdings as rural estate owners, in time as they moved towards the capital (Chang'an/Xi'an) and its near-by neighbour Luoyang, it became 'education over land ownership' that gave them their status--not just because of their proximity to the imperial family but also because it enabled them to congregate geographically to create powerful networks that were supported through intricate marriage alliances. Such alliances offered patronage opportunities that kept these elite in power even as their numbers swelled (due to the large size of the families given China's custom of recognising even the sons of concubines as legal sons of the head of the family).
Their congregation in the two cities (Xi'an-Luoyang) and the corridor that connected them, meant they were concentrated when the renegade Huang Chao swept through China in 880, crippling in the end virtually the entire empire. Unlike An Lushan, he was initially uninterested in establishing a new dynasty, so peasant and elite alike fell under his armies' swords.
The devastation was so extreme, it generated poems and idioms (such as 'before the upheaval' and 'after the upheaval') that write of spoliation, isolation, death, cannibalism, groves of mulberry trees going untended, and foxes and rabbits inhabiting the capital cities' ruins. But ironically, not in the volume that the An Lushan Rebellion generated, because far fewer literati elite survived Huang Chao's swords to record the horrors of the period. Those few that did survive often did so because they had been assigned to bureaucratic positions in distant provinces. It was from these handfuls of survivors that the successive Song Dynasty was able to rebuild the nation.
Anyone reading this excellent, well-written book will find themselves re-thinking the Tang-Song transition, Tang history, and the changes that occurred in the way China was ruled and the role of the literati throughout this period.
Fascinating charts of marriage alliances (as pieced together through the family genealogies revealed on the epitaphs) and geographical locations, plus translations of original epitaphs and literary references enrich the author's findings (and many thanks are due for including the original Chinese texts). The enriching footnotes should not be skipped over, and again, kudos for printing them at the bottom of the relevant pages. The bibliography and index are both excellent, and an appendix guides interested readers in accessing and using the database (in .mdb, Microsoft Access), available for download on the publisher's and author's web sites, together with an Excel spreadsheet with basic citation information for the epitaphs. This book has set a new standard for research, for it is not only well documented but also, most importantly, shares its ground work and makes it available for others for future research. One can finally begin to dream of the possibility of shared resources for researchers everywhere in this internet age (and wasn't this what the world-wide web was supposed to be for originally?).
December 8, 2014
Review forthcoming in the Bulletin of the Jao Tsung-i Academy of Sinology. Will post link here when it is published.
May 23, 2022
观点当然并不新，但方法在历史学里也是非常新了吧，利用社会网络方法做出来世族之间的父子链、姻亲关系网算是一种创新。到了最后结论的时候主要论证还是以诗证史，用了韦庄和司空图的诗。相对于前面大篇幅论证世家大族聚集于两京及其走廊地区，最后只用一个墓志铭数量的统计图说明黄巢之乱对世家大族的毁灭显得有些虎头蛇尾。不过无论如何，方法上是非常值得肯定的。
March 22, 2026
說的東西有點意思，但是可讀性很差。整本書無可厚非的都在述說他怎麼透過墓誌銘等資料整理出他的論點，但一般讀者基本上不關心也看不懂這些，只有那些搞學術的或許會在意。
譚凱認為，自東漢以來的中國豪門大族到了隋唐時代又一次的轉型。他們因為科舉的出現，從地方轉向了首都(中央)，並形成了一個複雜的關係網路以保持自己的權勢。這麼做的代價是失去了過去在地方的資源，因為當時的中國不像羅馬那樣有貨幣經濟跟地中海的運輸，世族無法像羅馬元老那樣身在首都，卻依然掌握地方莊園財富做為支持。
安史之亂並沒有對這群菁英豪門傷筋動骨，主要是安祿山也需要這些人為骨幹來建立其新政府，而戰爭的範圍波及在黃河流域，也讓部分人有避風港。戰後藩鎮的興起，為部分沒能擠進中央政府的菁英提供了新的去處--幕僚，他們為地方帶去了京城的文化與連結，而且很多人最後還是都回到了朝中任職，整體來說，還是在替唐朝統治的穩定出了一份力。
但黃巢不同。這些底層起義的反抗者在發現門閥世家出身的官僚對他們的鄙視後，用屠殺做為回應，兩京的菁英遭到了重創。同時，與安史之亂不同，這次的戰火蔓延到了幾近全國，各處都遭到了嚴重的破壞，幾乎沒有一個安全的避風港。雪上加霜的是，即將成立新政權的朱全忠也在因為被壟斷的科舉制而充滿仇恨的地方官僚的煽動下，補了一刀，把殘存的舊階級再次屠戮，於是從隋唐開始綿延的世族就此一空了。
十世紀以後的新興文官，大多來自地方，許多即便跟過去的那些豪門大族有些聯繫，但也多是旁支，或者是冒認。在新的經濟環境跟科舉任官制度下，五代到宋以後的「士大夫」已經跟隋唐時代的人們是兩種不同的階級了。
譚凱認為，自東漢以來的中國豪門大族到了隋唐時代又一次的轉型。他們因為科舉的出現，從地方轉向了首都(中央)，並形成了一個複雜的關係網路以保持自己的權勢。這麼做的代價是失去了過去在地方的資源，因為當時的中國不像羅馬那樣有貨幣經濟跟地中海的運輸，世族無法像羅馬元老那樣身在首都，卻依然掌握地方莊園財富做為支持。
安史之亂並沒有對這群菁英豪門傷筋動骨，主要是安祿山也需要這些人為骨幹來建立其新政府，而戰爭的範圍波及在黃河流域，也讓部分人有避風港。戰後藩鎮的興起，為部分沒能擠進中央政府的菁英提供了新的去處--幕僚，他們為地方帶去了京城的文化與連結，而且很多人最後還是都回到了朝中任職，整體來說，還是在替唐朝統治的穩定出了一份力。
但黃巢不同。這些底層起義的反抗者在發現門閥世家出身的官僚對他們的鄙視後，用屠殺做為回應，兩京的菁英遭到了重創。同時，與安史之亂不同，這次的戰火蔓延到了幾近全國，各處都遭到了嚴重的破壞，幾乎沒有一個安全的避風港。雪上加霜的是，即將成立新政權的朱全忠也在因為被壟斷的科舉制而充滿仇恨的地方官僚的煽動下，補了一刀，把殘存的舊階級再次屠戮，於是從隋唐開始綿延的世族就此一空了。
十世紀以後的新興文官，大多來自地方，許多即便跟過去的那些豪門大族有些聯繫，但也多是旁支，或者是冒認。在新的經濟環境跟科舉任官制度下，五代到宋以後的「士大夫」已經跟隋唐時代的人們是兩種不同的階級了。
May 4, 2022
谭凯这本书并非面对普通读者，可读性较差，更像是一篇动用了量化分析，有统计图表和历史地理信息系统的当代“科学”历史研究论文。
全书的重点就为了回答一个问题：中古时代（两汉，两晋，南北朝，隋唐）在中国政治中占有重要地位的门阀，在唐末是如何终结的？当然结论是早就知道的：这些门阀都在黄巢起义及其后续的五代十国动乱中被杀了。谭凯所做的工作，是证明这些门阀在安史之乱和随后的藩镇时代都适应并幸存了下来，还继续保有他们的权力地位，但最终没有挺过肉体消灭……
这本书展示了西方当代史学研究的手法，有别于中国史学习惯的义理和考据，文献数据的运用比较别开生面，论述也比较坚实，但阅读起来比较枯燥。
全书的重点就为了回答一个问题：中古时代（两汉，两晋，南北朝，隋唐）在中国政治中占有重要地位的门阀，在唐末是如何终结的？当然结论是早就知道的：这些门阀都在黄巢起义及其后续的五代十国动乱中被杀了。谭凯所做的工作，是证明这些门阀在安史之乱和随后的藩镇时代都适应并幸存了下来，还继续保有他们的权力地位，但最终没有挺过肉体消灭……
这本书展示了西方当代史学研究的手法，有别于中国史学习惯的义理和考据，文献数据的运用比较别开生面，论述也比较坚实，但阅读起来比较枯燥。
November 30, 2021
Incredibly interesting book about the failure of the Tang high aristocracy’s failure to survive the Tang-Sung transition. Author even convincingly argues that it collectively failed to outlive the dynasty itself. Also full of insights into the nature of power and indirectly but exactly how much Sui-Tang political developments transformed China.
I highly suggest considerable knowledge of ancient Chinese history as a prerequisite. I found myself constantly realizing how much I had forgotten or never learned, and I had read the papers leading up to this volume back when they were published.
This is actually one of the very best historical studies I have read. In is a brilliant book.
I highly suggest considerable knowledge of ancient Chinese history as a prerequisite. I found myself constantly realizing how much I had forgotten or never learned, and I had read the papers leading up to this volume back when they were published.
This is actually one of the very best historical studies I have read. In is a brilliant book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews