China Social Science Review

No.3, 2022

How to Recognize “Chineseness” in Early China

(Abstract)

Chen Minzhen

Some sinologists have questioned the existence of unity, continuity and uniqueness in early China (especially before the Shang dynasty), as highlighted in Robert Bagley’s review of Wu Hong’s Monumentality in Ancient Chinese Art and Architecture. As Bagley sees it, Wu Hong’s work manufactures a unified, continuous and unique “Chineseness.” The differences in cultures, disciplines and research paradigms revealed by the controversy surrounding this work still exist, and can be seen as reverberating in some new research in recent years. Reviewing this controversy can stimulate our further understanding of the unity, continuity and uniqueness of Chinese civilization.