BACKGROUND BOOKS

BACKGROUND BOOKS

nine centuries of "chastened, sober, often grim and drab maturity."
The causes of that languid decline are set forth Mark Elvin, an Ox- ford economic historian, in The Pat- tern of the Chinese Past (Stanford, 1973). Like the United States at the end of the 19th century, China began to "fill up" with people. But rather than look to foreign outlets for its ex- panded economy as the Americans did, the xenophobic Chinese turned inward, reducing their overseas trade and contacts.
Ironically,...

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