What China and India Once Were

Benjamin Elman is Gordon Wu ’58 Professor of Chinese Studies and professor of East Asian studies and history at Princeton University. His books include A Cultural History of Modern Science in China (2006) and Civil Examinations and Meritocracy in Late Imperial China (2013).Sheldon Pollock is the Arvind Raghunathan Professor of South Asian Studies at Columbia University. His many publications include World Philology (2015) and A Rasa Reader: Classical Indian Aesthetics (Columbia, 2016). He is founding general editor of the Murty Classical Library of India.

• PrefaceMapsIntroduction, by Benjamin Elman and Sheldon PollockPart I1. Life and Energy, by Kenneth Pomeranz and Sumit Guha2. Conquest, Rulership, and the State, by Pamela Crossley and Richard M. Eaton3. Gender Systems: The Exotic Asian and Other Fallacies, by Beverly Bossler and Ruby LalPart II4. Relating the Past: Writing (and Rewriting) History, by Cynthia Brokaw and Allison Busch5. Sorting Out Babel: Literature and Its Changing Languages, by Stephen Owen and Sheldon PollockPart III6. Big Science: Classicism and Conquest, by Benjamin Elman and Christopher Minkowski7. Pilgrims in Search of Religion, by Zvi Ben-Dor Benite and Richard H. Davis8. Art and Vision: Varieties of World Making, by Eugene Wang and Molly AitkenAfterword: The Act of Comparing (Both Sides, Now), by Haun Saussy and Dipesh ChakrabartyChronologyChinese and Indian TermsList of ContributorsIndex

In one stroke, What China and India Once Were opens up a new realm of knowledge. This bold experiment in comparative history not only exposes many contemporary ideas and assumptions about India and China as parochial. It equips anyone interested in political economy, gender relations, religion, art, and literature with intellectual tools of remarkable subtlety and precision—the means to a profound and holistic understanding of two major countries that would decisively shape the world’s future.