| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

David A. Graff. Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300–900. (Warfare and History.) New York: Routledge. 2002. Pp. viii, 288. $27.95.

In this slim volume, David A. Graff delivers a concise, well-crafted survey of the sequence of military and political events in China between the years 300 and 900. His prose is crisp and his mastery of the material assured. This book will be a valuable guide to anyone with an interest in the subject. 1

Merely to speak of "medieval" China already raises difficulties, however, since there are few similarities between this era of Chinese history and the European Middle Ages. As Graff explains in his introduction (pp. 3–4), words like "medieval"—even "China" itself—are Western terms that need to be set, as Graff adroitly does, in the proper Chinese context. Graff concludes (p. 254) that warfare in China during this period was most reminiscent of that in the Byzantine Empire under Justinian. Compared to medieval Western Europe, both the Chinese and Byzantine empires enjoyed relatively centralized, bureaucratic administrations. Graff believes that Chinese armies were probably substantially larger than the Byzantine, however, and the principle of civilian control more secure. . . .

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