Writing and the Ancient State explores the early development of writing and its relationship to the growth of political structures. The first part of the book focuses on the contribution of writing to the state's legitimating project. The second part deals with the state's use of writing in administration, analyzing both textual and archaeological evidence to reconstruct how the state used bookkeeping to allocate land, police its people, and extract taxes from them. The third part focuses on education, the state's system for replenishing its staff of scribe-officials. The first half of each part surveys evidence from Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Maya lowlands, Central Mexico, and the Andes; against this background the second half examines the evidence from China. The chief aim of this book is to shed new light on early China (from the second millennium BC through the end of the Han period, ca. 220 AD) while bringing to bear the lens of cross-cultural analysis on each of the civilizations under discussion.

Writing and the Ancient State is a comparative study of the use of writing to create and maintain order in early states.

About the Author
Wang Haicheng is an assistant professor in the School of Art, University of Washington, Seattle. His research centers on the art and archaeology of ancient China and the comparative study of early civilizations. Recent and forthcoming publications include a book chapter on the material record of the Erligang civilization, a chapter on urbanization and writing in The Cambridge World History, and papers on calligraphy and the archaeology of agency. He has lectured widely in the United States and China.


Book Information
ISBN 9781107028128
Author Haicheng Wang
Format Hardback
Page Count 427
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 1100g
Dimensions(mm) 261mm * 186mm * 25mm