The story of China since the Bronze Age is the tale of the rise and fall of many dynasties, through which the idea of a single unified state has been tenaciously maintained, underwritten by an ancient model of political power that has persisted right down to our own time. This ideal of a centralised, authoritarian bureaucracy ruled by the sage-emperor and his ministers and scholars is one, as we shall see, that continued in the psyche of Chinese culture even after the end of the empire.
