"I have touched on these somewhat less successful examples of the marriage of social science analysis to Chinese historical data not in order to damn the enterprise as such but to suggest how very difficult it is to do well. Finding the right theory—right both in terms of its applicability and in ter"
"The fact is–not only Americans approaching Chinese history from without but also Chinese historians approaching it from within–are, in some sense, outsiders. All of us are to an extent prisoners of our environments, trapped in one or another set of parochial concerns. And the truth we retrieve is in"