中西文明比较：中国五胡入华与欧洲蛮族入侵（英文）

◎编辑推荐

“文明因交流而多彩，文明因互鉴而丰富”。中西方文明比较，既能使中国与西方世界深刻地认识对方，准确地认识自己；更能淬炼人类共同价值，推动构建人类命运共同体。

本书为潘岳先生“中西文明比较系列”图书第三卷英文版，聚焦中国五胡入华与欧洲日耳曼部落入侵西罗马帝国这两大历史事件，条分缕析、引经据典深入探寻相似历史情境塑造不同历史轨迹的原因以及中西方文明逻辑之差异，以推动中西文明交流互鉴。

◎名人推荐

Pan Yue’s book makes an important contribution to the civilizational dialogue between the East and the West, and helps to bring us to the common ground, or “Agora” as I would call it, to enrich each other via debate, to move forward together, and to create a shared future for us all.

H.E. George Papandreou,

182nd Prime Minister of Greece,

President of the Socialist International

Pan Yue’s book is a book for our time. He shows how profoundly different the histories of Europe and China have been over more than two millennia and how this has resulted in the very different societies we see today.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The fundamental problem in the West is that it does not understand China, or even know how to understand China. The ideas in this book are the path of enlightenment.

Martin Jacques,

British Scholar of China Studies

◎内容简介

《中西文明比较：中国五胡入华与欧洲蛮族入侵》（英文版）是潘岳“中西文明比较系列”的第三卷英文。本书聚焦于公元300—600年间欧洲日耳曼部落入侵西罗马帝国与中国五胡入华这两大历史事件的比较研究，探析西方未能重建罗马帝国，而中国却在300年政治分裂之后重建统一王朝的原因，以及这两条历史轨迹所反映的中西方文明逻辑之差异。本书也探讨了中国式“多元”与“一体”的关系。这对于理解中华文明为何能持久连续地保持统一的多民族国家而不分裂为众多“民族国家”，以及理解当今中国如何看待与处理“民族问题”，也富有启发意义。

◎作者简介

潘岳，历史学博士，现任国家民族事务委员会主任、党组书记。曾任国务院侨务办公室主任、中华文化学院第一副院长、环境保护部副部长、国务院经济体制改革办公室副主任等职。

◎图书目录

Contents

Foreword I / i

Foreword II / iii

Preface / vii

Introduction / 1

Chapter I

The “Five Northerners” Entering the Central Plains / 11

Chapter II

Germanic Invasions of the Western Roman Empire / 69

Chapter III

Europe, China, and Their Civilizational Choices / 163

Conclusion / 221

Appendix: Commentaries / 235

◎序言(引言/导言/出版后记/编辑手记/跋)

Foreword

I

“A sustainable civilization is one that can examine itself, tolerate and accommodate others, coexist in harmony with others, and learn from others” – this is a common wisdom of both the Chinese civilization and the Greek civilization. It is the wisdom very much needed in today’s world, where challenges we face are global, and we need more than ever to work together, to learn from each other, and to focus on common values. Pan Yue’s book makes an important contribution to the civilizational dialogue between the East and the West, and helps to bring us to the common ground, or “Agora” as I would call it, to enrich each other via debate, to move forward together, and to create a shared future for us all.

H.E. George Papandreou,

182nd Prime Minister of Greece,

President of the Socialist International

          Foreword 

           II

The West has been the primary author of global history for the last two centuries. As a result of its dominance, the world sees history through a Western prism, based on an underlying assumption that the Western experience is universally relevant. The classic example is the nation-state. It has become the pre-condition for the recognition of polities. When a vast number of countries won their independence from their colonial masters after the Second World War, they were required to become nation-states. It was a condition of their independence. Yet the invention of the nation-state was an entirely European affair dating back to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The global dominance of Europe, and then the West more generally, imposed on the world a European-designed international system at the heart of which was the nation-state. It was not until the late 19th century that China was finally forced by its state of abject weakness to adapt to the European norms of the international system and begin the process of becoming, at least in part, a nation-state.

But China had never been a nation-state. It was a product of an entirely different history that was rooted in the Chinese civilization. China was a civilization-state. It is still primarily a civilization-state, although, being secondarily a nation-state, it might be described as a hybrid. And China is not alone. As Pan Yue points out, there are many other nation-states that are the product of civilizational histories such as Iran, Turkey, and Russia. But it is China that concerns us here. It is impossible to make sense of China unless its history as a civilization is recognized and understood. Alas, the West is in denial. It sees the world, and China, in narrowly Western terms. As a result, in a most fundamental way, the West does not understand China. It requires China to be Western, but China does not conform to the Western paradigm, never has and never will. During China’s long history of weakness, this did not matter. China could be used, abused, and ignored. But China’s rise makes this position unsustainable. The West is now obliged to understand China as it is not how it thinks it should be.

Pan Yue’s book is a book for our time. He shows how profoundly different the histories of Europe and China have been over more than two millennia and how this has resulted in the very different societies we see today. This is not a reason for regret but embrace and celebration: It is testimony to the richness of human history and the diversity of human experience. A knowledge of history, and a resulting respect for difference, opens up the possibility of a new kind of creative dialogue between the West and China based on mutual respect and understanding.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The fundamental problem in the West is that it does not understand China, or even know how to understand China. The ideas in this book are the path of enlightenment.

Martin Jacques,

British Scholar of China Studies

Preface

This book – Ancient China and Rome under the Alien Rule – is translated from the third part of the Chinese edition of Comparative Studies on Chinese and Western Civilizations, a part that probes into the historical events of the incursions of the Germanic tribes into the Western Roman Empire and of the “Five Northerners” (wuhu) into the Central Plains of China.

The Chinese edition was published by the New World Press in January 2022. My discussions on the “Inner Asian perspective,” on the “Oriental historiography” in Japan, and on the New Qing History approach in the United States, as shown in the book, have drawn the attention of domestic and overseas scholars on the histories of the Yuan, the Ming, and the Qing dynasties, and aroused their discussions.

I have strongly perceived the necessity to respond to these discussions. Although the third part of my original work is clearly focused on the Wei, the Jin, and the Northern and Southern dynasties (220-589), discussions on the “Inner Asian perspective” and on the New Qing History approach will inevitably go beyond this time range. Therefore, in the current English edition, I also use historical materials from the Liao (916-1125), the Song (960-1279), the Western Xia (1038-1227), the Jin (1115-1234), the Yuan (1271-1368), the Ming (1368-1644), and the Qing (1644-1911) dynasties of China.

It is also a necessary extension to better communicate with the Western academic circles. Given that the overseas scholars mainly focus on the above-mentioned periods of Chinese history to discuss the “Inner Asian” nature of Chinese dynasties, to respond to relevant discussions on my book in a more targeted manner, I reduce the historical materials previously used in the Chinese edition and instead use more typical materials and cases from the Liao, the Song, the Western Xia, the Jin, the Yuan, the Ming, and the Qing dynasties. At the same time, I also adjust part of my arguments, so as to more effectively respond to the discussions at home and abroad, and better illustrate the inner logic behind the different development paths of Chinese and Western civilizations. It should be noted that the Conclusion part is also different from that of the Chinese edition, as it was rewritten in response to the Westerners’ overall concerns about China’s path.

This English edition is translated by Professor Yuri Pines, a renowned Sinologist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Here I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Professor Yuri, as he has worked out a precise, elegant, and readable English version with his profound academic attainments, broad vision encompassing both China and the West, and proficiency in the historical and classical literature of China.

Many thanks to Benjamin Coles, a young British Sinologist and associate professor at Huaqiao University’s School of Philosophy and Social Development, Professor Peng Ping from Beijing Foreign Studies University, and Zhang Zhe, Research Fellow at Peking University’s Department of Sociology, who have also given helpful suggestions for translation.

I would also like to thank the New World Press, as its working team has made great efforts to edit and publish this book.

There will inevitably be some omissions in the book, and I sincerely welcome valuable opinions from readers at home and abroad.

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