A History of the World in 100 Objects - Dr Neil MacGregor [228]
Like his contemporary Frederick the Great, the Qianlong emperor was no master of poetry – he seems to have mixed Classical Chinese with vernacular forms to poor effect. But that didn’t hold him back – he published more than 40,000 compositions in his lifetime, part of his elaborate campaign to secure his place in history.
He was largely successful. Although the Qianlong emperor’s reputation dipped dramatically in the Communist period, it is once again strong in China. And a very satisfying discovery has just been made. As we saw a moment ago, the emperor wrote: ‘As one cannot show a stand without a bowl / we have selected a ceramic from the Ding kiln for it.’ Very recently a scholar in the Palace Museum collections in Beijing found a bowl that carries exactly the same inscription as the one on this disc. It is undoubtedly the very bowl chosen by the emperor to sit in the bi.
As he handled and thought about the bi, the Qianlong emperor was doing something central to any history based on objects. Exploring a distant world through things is not only about knowledge but about imagination, and necessarily involves an element of poetic reconstruction; with the bi, for example, the emperor knows it is an ancient and a cherished object, and he wants it to look its best. He believes it is a stand, and he finds a bowl that seems to be a perfect match – a choice made with his sense of supreme self-assurance that he is doing the right thing. It is unlikely his assumption about the bi being a stand was correct, but I find myself admiring and applauding his method.
PART NINETEEN
Mass Production, Mass Persuasion
AD 1780–1914
Between the French Revolution and the First World War the countries of Europe and the USA were transformed from agricultural to industrial economies. At the same time, their empires around the world grew, providing many of the raw materials and the markets these booming industries required. Eventually all of Asia and Africa were compelled to become part of the new economic and political order. Technological innovation led to mass production of goods and growing international trade: consumer goods that had previously been luxuries, such as tea, became widely affordable to the masses. In many countries, mass movements campaigned for political and social reforms, including the right for all men and women to be able to vote. Only one non-western country, Japan, successfully, if involuntarily, embraced modernization and emerged as an imperial power in its own right.
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Ship’s Chronometer from HMS Beagle
Brass chronometer, from England
AD 1800–1850
Why does the whole world measure its time and define its position in relation to the Greenwich Meridian, a line passing through a spot on the banks of the Thames in south-east London? The story begins with the invention in London of a sea-going clock that allowed sailors to find their longitude. The object pictured here is one of those clocks – a marine chronometer made around 1800 – which could keep perfect time even in rolling seas.
During what is sometimes called the ‘long’ nineteenth century, from the French Revolution to the First World War, the countries of western Europe and America were transformed from agricultural societies into industrial powerhouses. This Industrial Revolution generated many others. New technologies led for the first time to mass production of luxury goods: societies reorganized themselves politically at home, while overseas, empires expanded to secure raw materials and new markets. Technological advances also led to revolutions in thought: it is hardly an exaggeration, for example, to say that the whole idea of time changed in the nineteenth century, and in consequence so did our idea of ourselves and our understanding of humanity’s proper place in history.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries clockmaking was a vital European technology, and London was