** 20-Apr-2019 Sui Dynasty and Boxer Rebellion
CH86 wrote:
> John, in your generational history of China, you left out the
> period between the Sui reunification and the mongol conquest
> (roughly the late 6th through 13th centuries). Also Japan's
> history should be fleshed out more (you seem to start your
> analysis with Sengoku period and the Imjin war of
> 1592-98). Analysis of Imperial Japan and Late Qing China to the
> Cultural revolution is very detailed. However the Boxer rebellion
> analysis is incorrect in my opinion, the generational split was
> between Older traditionalists and Younger Modernizers, so much so
> that the Empress dowager (who controlled the state at the time)
> ordered the purge of the nominal emperor and his associates around
> the shortly before the boxer rebellion occurred.
>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxu_Emperor
Obviously, China's history is enormous, and someone could easily write
a multi-volume series tens of thousands of pages long on China's
history. Like everyone else writing a history, I have to select what
events to include.
Many histories read like laundry lists of events. For example,
a history of the US might have a chapter on each US president,
and what happened in each administration.
Historical analysis in generational theory focuses on events that are
affecting people's attitudes today. For example, a generational
history of the US would include the crisis wars (Revolutionary war,
Civil War, WW II), but would not include, or would barely mention,
other wars -- Indian wars, Mexican-American war, Spanish-American war,
WW I, Korean War, Vietnam War, 1991 Iraq war. Even the 2003 Iraq war
today is almost forgotten, except for some irrelevant political myths.
So in the case of China, one could write a history that consists
essentially a laundry list of dynasties, with a description of the
political events that happened in each one.
But I chose a different strategy in selecting events to include
in a generational history of China.
For the early dynasties, I focused on the stuff that's relevant today:
the stuff on the mandate from heaven, the Art of War, Confucius, and
Daoism. For later dynasties, the focus was on rebellions based in
religions -- Christianity, Islam, Buddhism.
So just as you would have difficulty finding an American who knows
anything about Martin Van Buren, or has even heard of him, I doubt
that you'll find a Chinese who knows anything about the Sui dynasty.
As for the Boxer Rebellion, the details of what happened are less
important than the perception today that if was a declaration of war
against the West, and part of the fabric of the "Century of
Humiliation."