In 221 bc the First Emperor of Qin unified the lands that would become the heart of a Chinese empire. Though forged by conquest, this vast domain depended for its political survival on a fundamental reshaping of Chinese culture. With this informative book, we are present at the creation of an ancient imperial order whose major features would endure for two millennia. The Qin and Han constitute the 'classical period' of Chinese history - a role played by the Greeks and Romans in the West. Mark Edward Lewis highlights the key challenges faced by the court officials and scholars who set about governing an empire of such scale and diversity of people. He traces the drastic measures taken to transcend, without eliminating, these regional differences: the invention of the emperor as the divine embodiment of the state; the establishment of a common script for communication and a state-sponsored canon for the propagation of Confucian ideals; the flourishing of the great families, whose domination of local society rested on wealth, landholding, and elaborate kinship structures; the demilitarization of the interior; and the impact of non-Chinese warrior-nomads in setting the boundaries of an emerging Chinese identity. The first of a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, "The Early Chinese Empires" illuminates many formative events in China's long history of imperialism - events whose residual influence can still be discerned today.

陸威儀（Mark Edward Lewis），1954年生，師從何炳棣，畢業於芝加哥大學。美國著名中國古代史專傢，斯坦福大學Kwoh—Ting Li（李國鼎）中國文化講座教授，。他的研究關注中國文明的不同方麵，尤其擅長從政治和社會層麵考察中國問題。著有“哈佛中國史”叢書中前三捲《早期中華帝國：秦與漢》、《分裂的帝國：南北朝》《世界性的帝國：唐朝》，以及《早期中國的寫作與權威》《早期中國的空間構造》等。