State Evolution and Governance in Ancient China

This book employs the analytical framework of "relational superposition" to explain the continuity, breakthroughs, and repetitions of Chinese state evolution.

Specifically, it elucidates how, after Qin Shi Huang’s unification of China, the ancient Chinese state and its governance transcended the dominance of kinship relations and shifted to territorial relations. This shift formed a super-large territorial state. Sustaining this state was an imperial system that included new institutional fa...