COMPTES RENDUS - AFEC

Comptes rendus
quest, the most devastating cultural destruction seems to hâve been at the
hands of the Ming. It does not do to treat this as mainly the work of the
Yuan (p. 117), but it is above ail a pity that this sort of multiplicity is
neglected in dealing with the bigger 'transition' from Song to Ming.
Some détails. It goes against the grain for me personally, and I expert
for most readers, to turn a review into a self-centred argument with a
book's views of one's own work, but hère it is ail but unavoidable. My
socio-economic essay of 1973, The Pattern ofthe Chinese Past, is taken as
one of the major référence points by the editors, and while some friendly
things are said about it (which I appreciate) several of its key argument are
bypassed with von Glahn's tantalizing phrase (p. 37) that "ail three components
of Elvin's 'fourteenth-century turning point' hâve been challenged."
But rightly or wrongly? And on what grounds? Among other
readers, I would rather like to know. Moreover, my thirty years of later
work on related topics, much of which has nuanced or even altered parts of
Pattern, such as that on the nature of incrémental technological improvements
in the Ming and Qing, or the 'technological lock-in' slowly created
by the intensification of lowland farming and improved hydraulics, are
passed over in silence. Elvin even long before 2003 was significantly
différent from the Elvin of 1973.
What struck me when researching Pattern thirty or so years ago was
that certain key trends did seem to reach a climax in Southern Song, Jin or
early Mongol times, and then fade from the scène. One of thèse was the
création of original mathematics, another was the development of waterpowered
spinning and twisting machinery as recorded in 1313. Neither of
thèse domains is dealt with in the présent book, but the lead editor, Paul
Jakov Smith, refers to an unpublished article written by Roger Hart for the
original conférence that deals with mathematics. I hâve not seen this article,
but it would seem to contain one clear misconception and one probable
(but arguable) one. The first misconception is that the continuing
compétent use of mathematics somehow voids the point that, at least for a
long time, originality died. It doesn't. The second is Hart's reported use of
the great musicologist Zhu Zaiyu, who flourished in the later sixteenth
century as, at least by implication, an example of a créative mathematician.
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