University of California Press Trade and Expansion in Han China: A Study in the Structure of Sino-Barbarian Economic Relations

Trade and Expansion in Han China: A Study in the Structure of Sino-Barbarian Economic Relations reframes the Han empire’s celebrated “Silk Route” moment within a far larger, more intricate economy of exchange and power. Ying-shih Yu argues that trade―in forms ranging from market transactions to “gift” and “tributary” exchange―and expansion―military, political, economic, and cultural―were mutually constitutive processes that shaped the Han world. Western outreach to the “Western Regions” and Central Asia, he shows, was ultimately instrumental to a central task closer to home: managing and transforming frontier societies such as the Xiongnu, Wuhuan, Qiang, and Southwestern peoples. By tracing how imperial gifts, subsidies, settlement, and acculturation (Sinicization) intertwined with frontier security and domestic agrarian stability, Yu reveals the policy logic behind spectacular campaigns and quiet payments alike―and explains why emperors could both push outward and later regret overreach. Moving well beyond narrative, Yu reconstructs the *structure* of Sino-barbarian economic relations: the modalities of exchange, the institutional anchors in Han political economy, and the long prehistory in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States eras. Mining dynastic histories and pairing them with archaeological finds―from knife-coins in Korea to Chinese weapons and bronzes in Manchuria and Sichuan―he maps the circuits through which merchants, herders, and officials converted textiles, livestock, and prestige goods into influence and territory. The result is a compelling portrait of a formative “Confucian” imperial order in practice, where statecraft relied on markets as much as on armies, and where cultural incorporation could be as decisive as conquest. Essential reading for historians of China, empire, and economic history, this classic study offers a durable framework for understanding how great powers govern frontiers―and how exchange, security, and culture coevolve. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1967.