The Song Dynasty: Most Innovative Chinese Dynasty in History
About a thousand years ago, while much of Europe was still bound to fragmented, rural feudalism, Song China had already invented paper money. They had gunpowder weapons. They had a magnetic compass. They had movable printing systems that could produce books by the thousands.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
01:19 Origins
06:26 The Examination System & The Scholar Class
13:16 The Economic Revolution
20:26 The Four Great Inventions And The Age Of Innovation
27:27 Art, Culture, And Daily Life
33:24 The Northern Threat
41:06 The Southern Song
4:56 The End Of Song
55:19 What The Song Left Behind
57:23 Conclusion
SOURCES
Primary Historical Sources:
●Sima Guang — Zizhi Tongjian (資治通鑑, 1084 CE) — the great chronicle history of China; foundational account of the Five Dynasties period and Song founding
●Shen Kuo — Dream Pool Essays (夢溪筆談, 1088 CE)
●Yue Ke (grandson of Yue Fei) — Jin Tuo Cui Bian (金佗粹編, c.1234 CE)
●Jingkang Bai Shi (靖康稗史) — contemporaneous eyewitness accounts of the sack of Kaifeng and the capture of Emperors Huizong and Qinzong
●Songshi (宋史, 1345 CE) — the official dynastic history of the Song, compiled under the Yuan Dynasty; primary record for the Battle of Yamen and the dynasty's end
●Ouyang Xiu — Xin Wudai Shi (新五代史, 1073 CE) — the official Song history of the Five Dynasties period
●Huizong — Daguan Cha Lun (大觀茶論, c.1107 CE) — the emperor's own treatise on tea
●Marco Polo — The Travels of Marco Polo (c.1300 CE)
Academic Books:
●Patricia Ebrey — Emperor Huizong (Harvard University Press, 2014)
●Patricia Ebrey — The Cambridge Illustrated History of China (Cambridge, 2010)
●Jacques Gernet — Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion (Stanford, 1962)
●F.W. Mote — Imperial China 900–1800 (Harvard, 2003)
●Dieter Kuhn — The Age of Confucian Rule (Harvard, 2009)
●Tonio Andrade — The Gunpowder Age (Princeton, 2016) — gunpowder weapons from Song China to the rise of the West
●Richard Von Glahn — The Economic History of China (Cambridge, 2016)
●Morris Rossabi — Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (UC Press, 1988)
●Daniel K. Gardner — The Four Books (Hackett, 2007)
●Ichisada Miyazaki — China's Examination Hell (Yale, 1981)
Encyclopedic References:
●Denis Twitchett & Paul Jakov Smith (eds.) — The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 5, Parts 1 & 2: The Sung Dynasty (Cambridge, 2009/2015)
●Herbert Franke & Denis Twitchett (eds.) — The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 6: Alien Regimes and Border States (Cambridge, 1994)
●Joseph Needham et al. — Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge, 1954–2008, 25 vols.)
●Angus Maddison — The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective (OECD, 2001)
Free Online:
●Chinese Text Project — ctext.org — free searchable database of primary Chinese texts including the Dream Pool Essays, the Four Books, and the Songshi
●Harvard China Biographical Database — cbdb.fas.harvard.edu — over 400,000 Song Dynasty individuals searchable by role and period
●National Palace Museum Taipei — npm.gov.tw/en — world's largest collection of Song imperial art including Huizong's original works and the Qingming scroll, with online catalogue