Unbounded Loyalty-轻识

Unbounded Loyalty investigates how frontiers worked before the modern nation-state was invented. The perspective is that of the people in the borderlands who shifted their allegiance from the post-Tang regimes in North China to the new Liao empire (907–1125). Naomi Standen offers new ways of thinking about borders, loyalty, and identity in premodern China. She takes as her starting point the recognition that, at the time, “China” did not exist as a coherent entity, neither politically nor geographically, neither ethnically nor ideologically. Political borders were not the fixed geographical divisions of the modern world, but a function of relationships between leaders and followers. When local leaders changed allegiance, the borderline moved with them. Cultural identity did not determine people’s actions: Ethnicity did not exist. In this context, she argues, collaboration, resistance, and accommodation were not meaningful concepts, and tenth-century understandings of loyalty were broad and various.

Unbounded Loyalty sheds fresh light on the Tang-Song transition by focusing on the much-neglected tenth century and by treating the Liao as the preeminent Tang successor state. It fills several important gaps in scholarship on premodern China as well as uncovering new questions regarding the early modern period. It will be regarded as critically important to all scholars of the Tang, Liao, Five Dynasties, and Song periods and will be read widely by those working on Chinese history from the Han to the Qing.

史怀梅（Naomi Standen），英国杜伦大学东亚研究博士，现为英国伯明翰大学历史学系教授。目前，她主要致力于欧亚北部边疆问题的研究，特别是对中古时期东北亚越境者、边界、边疆之间互动关系的研究。执笔《剑桥中国史五代宋史》“五代”部分，出版《忠贞不贰？——辽代的越境之举》一书，发表论文《五代时期的劫掠与边疆社会》、《游牧者的需求：劫掠、入侵与947年辽的征服行动》等数十篇，在学界影响巨大。