Opposing Unity: A New History of South China in the First Millennium

Dr. Andrew Chittick

E. Leslie Peter Professor of East Asian Humanities and History, Eckerd College

This talk will explore this alternative imperial tradition, which was self-consciously rooted in Wu regional culture, strongly linked to maritime South and Southeast Asia, and actively opposed to “unification” due to conquest by northern empires. Though the tradition has largely been written out of the usual narratives of Chinese history, it had a significant impact on the political and especially the economic transformation known as the Tang-Song transition, at the turn of the second millennium.

Host or Publisher The Elling Eide Center