汉代中国经济、社会和国家权力——评许倬云的《汉代农业:早期中国农业经济的形成》

Han Dynasty China: Economy, Society, and State Power --A Review of Cho-yun Hsu, Han Agriculture: The Formation of Early Chinese Agrarian Economy

许倬云所著的《汉代农业早期中国农业经济的形成》是美国西雅图华盛顿大学“汉代研究丛书”之一种。该著作不仅为西方读者考察和介绍了关于汉代农业的重要史料,而且还进一步诠释了古代中国农业经济、社会和国家发展的历史。但是,受魏特夫“亚细亚型社会”和“东方专制主义”观点的影响,作者在运用相关考察汉代农业经济时,却忽略了对传统史料的考证和诠释。这种倾向,导致了作者在论述水利工程、人口增长、佃农人数、国家权力和田租数量等影响农业经济发展的要素时,忽略或误读了传统史料所表达的基本信息。同样,作者对汉代地主阶级势力所作出的过低的估计也存在着相当问题。实际上,整个汉代,地主阶级的发展是极为活跃的西汉后期,地主豪强兼并土地已愈演愈烈;迨至东汉,随着田庄的兴起,汉朝统一的根基不断被腐蚀,最后终于瓦解了汉王朝的统治。

The book 'Han Agriculture: The Formation of Early Chinese Agrarian Economy ' authored by Cho-yun Hsu is one of the series 'Han Dynasty China Project' published by the University of Washington in Seattle. The author surveys the important historical materials about the Han agriculture and introduces them to the western readers, and moreover, he gives an interpretive history of the agrarian economy, society and state in ancient China. However, being influenced by K. A. Wittfogel's view of 'asiatic society' and 'oriental despotism', the author overlooked the textual research and annotation of traditional historical materials when he reviewed the agrarian economy in the Han Dynasty making use of relative social science theories. The tendency above made the author ignore or misread the fundamental information expressed by traditional historical materials as he discussed the essentials that influence the development of agrarian economy, such as irrigation work, population growth, tenant farmers, state power and land tax. Similarly, there are considerable issues in the author's lower estimation of forces of landlord class in the Han Dynasty. Actually the landlord class have developed vigorously throughout the Han Dynasty. In the latter period of West Han, the landlords and magnates annexed land even more intensively. By the East Han, with the rise of estates, the foundation of the unitary empire was eroded continually, which brought the Han Dynasty to an end .