In art and philosophy, many people think, no culture has ever surpassed that of China in its great creative periods. But taken in another way, Chinese history can be made to throw sharp lights and revealing shadows on the story of all mankind-from its most primitive beginnings, some of which were in Asia, to its highest point of development in philosophy and religion, literature and art. And even 3,500 years ago China’s civilization was old! This in itself is discouraging to the student, particularly if we think of history as a baffling catalogue of who begat somebody, who succeeded somebody, who slew somebody, with only an occasional concubine thrown in for human interest. An old missionary student of China once remarked that Chinese history is “remote, monotonous, obscure, and-worst of all-there is too much of it.” China has the longest continuous history of any country in the world-3,500 years of written history.
0 kommentar(er)
