tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post799702110473022194..comments2024-03-23T04:01:39.348-04:00Comments on Understanding Society: Great structures?Dan Littlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15953897221283103880noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-62245278333835331082009-01-27T00:24:00.000-05:002009-01-27T00:24:00.000-05:00"To fit the bill, then, a great structure should h..."To fit the bill, then, a great structure should have some specific features of scope and breadth. It should be geographically widespread, affecting a large population."<BR/><BR/>Structures can be very small in scope and very fragmentary and overlapping. This was the case in the wake of the Mongol invasions in Southeast Asia. In mainland Southeast Asia large-scale Mon and Burmese states contended for resources alongside smaller confederations of Tai chieftainships, see for example:<BR/><BR/>Fernquest, Jon (2006b) "Crucible of War: Burma and the Ming in the Tai Frontier Zone (1382-1454)," SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, Vol. 4, No. 2, Autumn 2006.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps need to diversify Annales perspective with anthropological perspective to make the generalizations more universal, see:<BR/><BR/>Johnson, Allen W. and Timothy Earle (2000). The Evolution of Human Societies: From Foraging Group to Agrarian State. Second Edition.Stanford, CA: Stanford<BR/>University Press<BR/><BR/>"A system of trading and credit may have centrally enforced and locally reinforcing mechanisms that assure that it works similarly in widely separated places."<BR/><BR/>Yunnan on the Ming periphery would be an interesting case study but many open questions. In Yunnan a cowry based monetary system was still widely in use while the capital at Beijing did issue paper money but had problems supporting its value. This money was given to chieftains travelling from Yunnan to Beijing to pay tribute. Need more detailed attention to sources like this detail packed recent volume:<BR/><BR/>Liew-Herres, Foon Ming, Victor Grabowsky, and Aroonrut Wichienkeeo (2008) Lan Na in Chinese Historiography: Sino-Tai Relations as Reflected in the Yuan and Ming Sources (13th to 17th Centuries), Bangkok : Institute of Asian Studies Chulalongkorn University.Jon Fernquesthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14974424595128404537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-62800328432376258442009-01-26T13:48:00.000-05:002009-01-26T13:48:00.000-05:00Is part of the problem, here, that "great structur...Is part of the problem, here, that "great structures" are an historian's response to a paucity of evidence? If the sources you have to work with are more lacunae than text -- mere scraps scattered across the map and across a century or more -- the natural temptation is to try to meld those scraps into a comprehensible whole. The temptation is to simply imagine "a great structure" in which the scattered scraps of evidence are all pieces in the same whole. If the scraps are, in fact, pieces of disparate, diverse morphing structures, well, you'd better get another job.<BR/><BR/>The Annales school is, of course, famous for its advocacy of imagination as method, but I was particularly moved by your reference to Finley's work on the ancient economy. The sum total of primary literary evidence on the economy of ancient Athens or the economic institutions of the Roman Empire in, say, the Augustan period, is pitiful. The sum total of all primary, literary evidence on Roman slavery over the course of a millenium, including inscriptions and graffiti, would not fill four slim volumes. Working through, and inferring something, from the archeology is challenging to the imagination as well.Bruce Wilderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09631065564839959376noreply@blogger.com