There are reasons for this temporary backwardness which we will take up later. We are likely - today to think of the Chinese as a вЂњbackwardвЂќ people who are less civilized than we are, and it is true that in what we carelessly speak of as civilization-mechanization and the fruits of scientific discovery-they have, in the last hundred years, lagged behind the procession and are only beginning to catch up. There is nothing like a brief look at Chinese history to give one a new and wholesome respect for the Chinese people. In material culture, though we think of the roots of our own civilization as being almost entirely European, we have also received much from Asia-paper, gunpowder, the compass, silk, tea, and porcelain. In art and philosophy, many people think, no culture has ever surpassed that of China in its great creative periods.

But taken in another way, Chinese history can be made to throw sharp lights and revealing shadows on the story of all mankind-from its most primitive beginnings, some of which were in Asia, to its highest point of development in philosophy and religion, literature and art.

And even 3,500 years ago ChinaвЂ™s civilization was old! This in itself is discouraging to the student, particularly if we think of history as a baffling catalogue of who begat somebody, who succeeded somebody, who slew somebody, with only an occasional concubine thrown in for human interest. An old missionary student of China once remarked that Chinese history is вЂњremote, monotonous, obscure, and-worst of all-there is too much of it.вЂќ China has the longest continuous history of any country in the world-3,500 years of written history.

Dynasty war clash of nations