Chinese Han lacquer cup

A History of the World in 100 Objects

BBC

History

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2010

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In a week of programmes exploring the nature of power and the emergence of new rulers around the world 2000 years ago, Neil MacGregor takes us to Han Dynasty China. He tells the story of how the Chinese maintained loyalty and control by dispensing luxury gifts. He describes the world of the imperial Han through an exquisite lacquer wine cup that was probably given by the emperor to one of his military commanders in North Korea. The historian Roel Sterckx underlines the importance of lacquer for the period while writer Isabel Hilton looks at how the production of goods under state control has remained a consistent interest of the Chinese. Producer: Anthony Denselow

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of a history of the world in a hundred objects from BBC Radio 4. This is a week about different kinds of power,
0:18.0	about how to achieve it and how to keep it.
0:21.0	Millions of words have been written on the subject of influencing others,
0:25.3	but 2,000 years ago, which is the period of this week's programs, leaders weren't given many
0:30.4	handily packaged tips explaining their methods.
0:33.8	No books at the airport then on how to be a better emperor.
0:38.0	rulers just had to get on with it. In our less confident times a new ruler could find lots of literature on just this subject
0:51.1	and one bestseller has become so famous that its title has entered the
0:55.0	language. How to win friends and influence people has sold over 15 million copies telling
1:01.7	us all how to do exactly what it says on the cover.
1:05.3	But strangely, nowhere in that book does it mention one very obvious strategy that the
1:10.8	power brokers in Imperial China of 2000 years ago knew very well and practiced brilliantly.
1:17.0	Don't just say encouraging things.
1:20.0	Give your target a hugely extravagant present.
1:25.0	Throughout history, as any anthropologist will tell you,
1:28.0	the simplest way to bind people to you
1:31.0	has been to give them a special gift, a present that only you can give and only
1:35.9	they are worthy to receive. A present like the object in this programme. Lack-aware in
1:42.4	cops such as D's would have been the equivalent of
1:45.0	silver plates for the Romans or blue and white porcelain in Europe in the 17th and 18th century.
1:51.0	I mean what you have here is a very high standard both of craftsmanship and of technology.
1:56.8	Exquosite artisanship, exquisite decoration, very simple lines, very beautiful, combined in this one intriguing object.
	...

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