Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires

At their peaks, both states controlled up to a half of the world population[1] and produced political and cultural legacies that endure to the modern era; comparative studies largely focus on their similar scale at their pinnacles and on synchronism in their rise and decline.

Scholars also explore the relevance of ancient structures and characteristics to China's loss of world leadership in what has been called the Early Modern "Great Divergence."

[2] The historian Frederick John Teggart in 1939 published Rome and China: A Study of Correlations in Historical Events, covering the period of the Han dynasty.

"[4] The comparison, Teggart argued, revealed a correspondence in barbarian invasions throughout the continent of Eurasia, "and thus brought to light relations in the histories of widely separated areas which had not previously been suspected.

"[5] Walter Scheidel reviewed the previous scholarship when he explained the purpose of Stanford University's ancient Chinese and Mediterranean Empires Comparative History Project and the framework of its study in the early 21st century.

Scheidel also noted a change in the direction of research in the 2000s, with a refocusing on the "nature of moral, historical, and scientific thought" in Greece and China.

[1] These researches have tended to focus on the philosophical and intellectual histories of China and the Greco-Roman world, and despite modern interest, gaps remain in the scholarship comparing Rome and the Han Empires.

Scheidel notes that there are no comparative studies of high culture; there is also a virtual absence of work on "political, social, economic or legal history" of the Greco-Roman world and ancient China, though historian Samuel Adshead addressed the issue.

[17] Adshead similarly supposed that due to "isolation of China behind desert, mountains and jungles … and with its back to a dead ocean," the Chinese elites strove to unity more than the European.

Since the condition of global closure (impossibility to expand) makes our world system more similar to China than Rome, the Chinese political pattern is supposed to be more relevant for us than the Roman.

This implies hard anti-hegemonic balancing like against Qin rather than soft balancing like against Rome, total war and sweeping conquest like Qin in 230–221 BC rather than Rome's gradual annexations, and, if civilization survives, a cosmopolitan revolution, like the Han revolution in 202 BC and the Edict of Caracalla in AD 212, which similarly would turn the global American Empire into World State.

Since the modern system will remain totally circumscribed until the end of history, this World State is likely to be permanent like the Chinese rather than temporary like the Roman.

[8] In the opinion of Scheidel: only comparisons with other civilizations make it possible to distinguish common features from culturally specific or unique characteristics and developments, help us identify variables that were critical to particular historical outcomes and allow us to assess the nature of any given ancient state or society within the wider context of premodern world history.

[16] Regarding why China and Rome, Scheidel explains that these two were among the largest (especially by population) and persistent of pre-modern empires, and in addition expanding and collapsing at roughly the same time.

[32] In the words of Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, "Comparing the Roman and Han empires contributes not only to understanding the trajectories along which the two civilizations developed, but also to heightening our awareness of possible analogies between the present and the past, be it with regard to America or China.

"[33] Recent work by Ronald A. Edwards shows how such comparisons can be helpful in understanding ancient Han Chinese and Roman European political institutions.

[34] At last, comparison between the Roman and Han empires is aided by the rich amount of written evidence from both, as well as other artefactual sources.

[33] Already Spengler emphasized the existence of the vast primary sources on the Warring States and stressed that the development corresponds not only to the contemporary Mediterranean world but also to "our own present time.