Mei Jiang 江湄

Beijing: Sanlian (SDX & Harvard-Yenching Academic Library), November 2025

About the book: Starting from the perspective of intellectual history, this work focuses on how scholars across the Song, Jin and Yuan dynasties reconstructed the concepts of “China” and “All-under-Heaven”. It reveals how the notion of “All-under-Heaven and China” was revitalized and redefined amid dramatic social changes. While scholars of the Northern and Southern Song upheld legitimacy through the distinction between Han and non-Han peoples, literati in the Central Plains during the Jin-Yuan transition embraced the ideal of “a common realm for all”, endowing “China” with profound cultural and spiritual connotations. In the turbulent era marked by the reversal of the traditional Han-barbarian order, the soul-searching question “Where lies the true Central Plains?” breathed new life into the idea of grand unification. The Yuan unification thus transcended mere military conquest, ushering in a new historical phase of “integrating All-under-Heaven into China”. It also laid the ideological foundation and integration logic for a multi-ethnic China.

本书从思想史出发，聚焦宋、金、元三代士人对“中国”与“天下”的观念重构，揭示“天下-中国”观如何在剧变中被重新激活并赋予新义——两宋士人以“华夷之辨”自守正统，而金元之际的“中州士”则以“公天下”为理想，赋予“中国”文化性与精神性的内涵。在“夷夏错位”的乱世中，“何处是中州”的追问促使“大一统”理念焕发新生，使元朝的统一不再是单一的征服，而开启了“合天下于中国”的历史新篇，奠定多民族中国的思想根基与整合逻辑。

About the series: The SDX and HYI Academic Series 三联·哈佛燕京学术丛书 began in 1994. It is edited by Feng Jinhong, Yang Le, and Zhong Yun, and is expected to publish 6 titles per year.