第1页 INTRODUCTION

China owes its ability to endure across time, and to reform itself again and again after period of disunity, to a fundamental reshaping of Chinese culture by the earliest dynasties, the Qin and the Han.
Five features of the classical period will be explored in depth in the chapters that follow. They are: (1) the distinct regional cultures whose division were transcended, but not eradicated, by the imperial order; (2) the consolidation of a political structure centered on the person of the emperor; (3) the cultivation of literacy based on a non-alphabetic script and of a state-sponsored literary canon that sanctioned the state's existence; (4) demilitarization of the interior, with military activity assigned to marginal peoples at the frontier; (5) the flourishing of wealthy families in the countryside who maintained order and linked the villages to the center of power.
Lewis对中国“classical era”的阐述。黎明钊“秦汉史”第一堂课就以这五点展开，而我对这门课唯一的印象也就仅限于此了。