Ancient Times Of China And Japan example essay topic

A Critique By Stewart M. WhobreyAbstractThe Far East, written by Paul H. Clyde and Burton F. Beers is a book containing a collection of facts and is presented in chronological and topical order starting with history in general and this history in particular. The authors begin their book with "What is history?" The answer is "In its simplest form, history is the record of things thought, said, and done. Such a definition is a useful starting point but it leaves a host of questions unanswered". (p. 1) It is here that I find myself in complete agreement with the authors not just for this book but history in general as a subject. The authors' foundation for their book is centered on the subject of history itself. However, it is at this point that I begin to have problems with analysis presented.

The authors make the examination, "For those who are practically inclined, it is a principal means through which man may anticipate the future". (p. 2) I think this statement is more wishful than realistic. The geographic depiction offered in the book gives the reader unfamiliar with this region of the world a 1) starting point on a world map and a 2) sense of not only where but the density covered by the book. With this sense the reader can better understand why there is demographic, cultural, and language differences within and among the many countries as well as the root similarities. The reader finds enhanced discerning to the impact of east meeting west; how from their views the cultural shock was enormous in the past and continues today. The book research is both extensive and systematic, cumulating some 50 odd years.

I, as a reader, cannot say the good or bad of this other than to say the focus of the book seems distinctive in content, with the sources listed point to this detail. Book Organization Overall Composition The book includes thirty-six chapters of surprising stories some superb and some grisly of regional history and is arranged in chronological order. Selective chapters are organized with regional chronicles of Old China to New Governments of Asia since 1953. The chapters relate many details and events and processes with noteworthy consequences that have made a foremost impact to the past and present world.

It is pragmatically written and contains distortions and omitted parts. It is apparent that it is written from a Western point of view. The book also contains a list of maps, charts, and a preface Breakdown of Information The book contains a list of maps, charts, a preface, and the Roman conquest to culture and language of Chinese and Japanese as well as he Ancient times of China and Japan. The first four chapters begin with history in common and this history (Far East) in specific. All this begins with Old China; their ideas and beliefs. China is one of the first and richest civilizations in the world.

China's history begins with the Shang dynasty and is followed with the Chow dynasty. It was under the Chow period that great influences like Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Mo Tzu contributed enormously to the ideas and beliefs of the people. China's government and educational systems were also greatly influenced by Confucian precepts, after much internal strife and war. It created the venue for China's first emperor and the complete building of the Great Wall.

Since I have no prior experience with early China history other than this course, I will limit my response to form and content of which I found to be informative, and organized for easy comprehension. The comparisons offered throughout between old China and today's China gives a contrast that allows for easier understanding by the novice and the general public. Next is Old Japan, which was concerned with the people who were to become the Japanese of ancient times that were migrants from the Asian continent of a mainly Mongoloid tribal mix. Most of them reached Japan through Korea in successive waves of exodus extending over a vast interval of years.

The Ainu, an aboriginal group, whose racial identity continues to be a vague, preceded these Mongoloids in the lands of Japan. In ancient times, approximately since the third century AD, the Ainu inhabited northern Honshu and Hokkaido Unlike China, recognized as the originator of an East Asian civilization (Confucianism), or India, which formed a world religion in Buddhism, Japan seemed quite unimposing in its historic role in the construction of Asian society. Moreover, it has often appeared, quite misguidedly, that Japan was sterile in cultural concepts. Japan could do no more than borrow from her neighbors. She absorbed much of the culture of China from the sixth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. However during the mid-twentieth century she has drawn heavily on Western society.

The fact is that Japan both ancient and modern did much more than made use of, they adapted what they took from others, shaping it to their own native and sometimes ancient traditions. Thus they created a civilization, which, though input of Chinese or Western ideas and institutions, is unambiguously Japanese. The ability of the Japanese to safeguard the extraordinary character of their customs, despite extensive borrowing from outside of their country, was toughened by their insular position. Because of it's geographic location, Japan could open her doors to influence, or she could close them while she accustomed herself to what she had learned. The results are a distinctive Japanese society and character, which, while belonging to East Asia, was unlike that of any other people in the region. Japan's initial cultural input from China was deliberate; they were not forced by foreign military conquest.

Japan was therefore free to digest what she learned from China in comparative seclusion. Chinese influence fashioned and colored their ideas and institutions but did not demolish the same. Again, I have no prior knowledge of Japanese ancient society. I will again limit my comments to form, research, and subject matter. The investigation and research for this part of the book has been very thorough and extensive. Is very easy to comprehend and keeps the readers interest throughout.

With the discovery of East Asia by the West in the sixteenth century, the Jesuits thought they had found in China something akin to the ideal state. In the nineteenth century, Protestant missionaries found a supreme example of depravity. China of the sixteenth century was not the same as the China of the nineteenth century. When the West makes contact with East Asia, it reaches back into the pre-Christian era. The time at which Europe gained its first knowledge of China is not known with confidence. Perhaps it was as early as the sixth or even the seventh century B.C. Land traffic in silk from China to the Roman world had developed by the early years of the Christian era.

The demand for Chinese silk continued during the first six centuries of the Christian era until Europe created its own silk. The sixth century in Asia witnessed the intensification of the Turks and their westward advance until they had affected diplomatic contacts with Rome at Constantinople. This incident did not point the way to direct Roman contact with China. It did however create Byzantine Greek literature, and originated from Turkish sources, the most illuminating picture of China to emerge in Europe preceding records of Marco Polo. It was more than two centuries after the travels of Marco Polo in China that Europeans came to the shores of Japan.

The first of these was the Portuguese. This was extraordinary because of the removal of all Europeans and the last great Shogunate control of Japan, along with a policy of exclusion and seclusion Japan endured for centuries with no further Western influence during this period of history. China and Japan continue with their internal and external struggles with and without Western influence. The changes that brought both countries into the twentieth century are spelled out in great detail. The documentation and research presented for this is very extensive along with the additional suggested readings throughout the chapter. The results in making the reader very informed.

The general audience will find this text fascinating and easy to comprehend. A novice like myself found the facts full of interesting points that added greatly to my knowledge on the history of these two countries. The early and mid-twentieth century brought two world wars and many changes for Japan and China. America and the Allies made the American influence even stronger with the conquest and occupation.

After WWII. there was the disposition of Japan's empire in 1945; all the Allied Powers shared the division with major portions going to the Big Three, the U.S. A, Russia, and Great Britain. Southeast Asia had limited occupation by British, French, and Dutch as well as Nationalist China. China's internal war between Nationalists and Communists ended in the Communist's victory 1949, with the establishment of a central government. It is clear that the aim of this government was to reduce and eliminate Russian influence. The intent of the Chinese Communists is that the people of Asia, including Southeast Asia, should be allowed to make a decision about their political future without foreign meddling and the promotion, acceptance, of Communist philosophy within China and Asia. Southeast Asia again became a focus of the American government.

In the late 1950's, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand all moved toward Communism. Support was being received in North Vietnam by Russia, along with the change in Ho Chi Minh and his government in the North from Democracy. This policy change was used against the French to Communism and the push for unity of the North with the South. American involvement increased under pressure to assume a larger role. America sent even more money, arms, and military troops to Vietnam. The conflict continued for Americans for just under twenty years (1957-1975).

This brought major changes not only for Vietnam and her people, but also for America herself on the home front. The war for America has had a lasting major impact on American politics, people, and policies in foreign affairs. This impact has continued into this century in the policies of our government in international affairs. Conclusion The mission of the historian, and indeed of the scholar of history, is to assemble a record of the earlier period, a documentation of ideas, alleged, and completed, to process the record through critical analysis, and to put forward meanings that are derivative of the evidence. It is these values that give purpose to man's experiences, allowing him to make use of them for good or for ill. In Old China, for example, the Confucian literature was greatly concerned with the writing of history and illuminating the lessons that were meant to be taught by that history.

What is more, people became expert in their application of what they have learned to prudent politics, and the evidence of this is found to have something to do with the richness and the longevity of Old China's great civilization. In the West, we have nurtured zealous forms of patriotism and global conflict. The great powers, it has been said, have perverted "steps forward" into a allegiance to continuous war, thereby reducing peace to an abnormality, instead of simply a memory from the nineteenth and twentieth century. For the American student who seeks to increase his own chronological interpretations on modern East Asia, difficulties in sifting and evaluating the evidence compose only part of the conundrum.

Even a partial familiarity with Asia is something that Americans do not effortlessly acquire. The topic remains far indifferent in the educational tradition. The end result is that the American way of measuring Asia becomes often been poignant rather than intellectual. Americans have only a vague knowledge of Asia's historical past, and are used to viewing their country's role in the East as consistently generous. This is a gratifying theory, but one that has been left illusive to Americans, along with the confusing questions posed by the events of contemporary time.