A question academics and historians have asked throughout time is simply what is Civilization. Civilization can be defined as an advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture science, industry and government has been reached. With that stated we must now look upon the question which is pertinent to our studies and this paper. That question is what is Chinese Civilization, and in order to answer this question we shall delve into the history of China itself taking examples from Chinese history going as far back as to china’s earliest empires to the present day.
We will look at details from the Han Dynasty from 206BCE-220CE, the Tang Dynasty from 618 CE-907CE, and the Song Dynasty 960CE-1279CE. Then moving forward in time we shall ski ahead a few centuries closer to modern day china and examine the Era of Mao Zedong and the beginning of Communist rule in China, finally ending with a look at the present day China with the help of the novel Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang which looks at the lives of Chinas burgeoning migrant culture In the wake of the economic reforms brought about by Deng Xiaoping after the Mao Era. In the opening paragraph of this paper a definition of civilization was given, but now we shall seek to define what in our own opinion can be seen as Chinese Civilization. Chinese Civilization is the story of a people who throughout their existence have created a society where the Government has always taken a leading role in the society and lives of the people. A good example of this is seen in the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty had an extremely strong central government where the Emperor was the supreme leader, the leader of the armed forces, the top judicial official and law maker as well as the designator of top post for post in governmental organizations.
The Han Dynasty as previously stated had a strong central government which was demonstrated by the fact that they instituted a monetary system which was coinage based...