The Rise, Decline, and Reinforcement of the Crafts in the Service of the State

Historians’ opinions are divided as to the usefulness of the classical pattern of ascent, flourishing, decay, and decline for the structural framework of analysis of political entities. In China, this had been a time-honoured concept applied to all dynastic histories. Yet it has been criticized because it focuses too much on the central government and is therefore not able to analyze socio-economic trends over periods that span several dynasties, most prominently the ‘commercial revolutions’ in the Song and the Ming. ¹