Kharara

  The Rise and Fall of the Tang Dynasty (618–907)_State, Society and Empire in Medieval China_By Dr. Rahul S. Kharat Abstract The Tang dynasty (618–907) was among the most durable, cosmopolitan and culturally creative regimes in the history of China and of Eurasia. This article offers an integrated account of its trajectory, from the collapse of the Sui and the founding of the dynasty by Li Yuan and Li Shimin, through the institutional consolidation of the seventh century, the unique reign of the Empress Wu Zetian, and the brilliant “High Tang” of Emperor Xuanzong, to the catastrophe of the An Lushan Rebellion and the long, uneven decline that ended with the abdication of Emperor Ai in 907. It argues that the dynasty’s greatest strengths, namely its fusion of northern and southern traditions, its openness to the steppe and to the Silk Road, and its flexible administrative machinery, also generated the pressures that eventually undid it: the militarisation of the frontiers, the fisc...