Abstract
TT may seem remarkable that the Chinese with their passion for ‘antiques' should have neglected their antiquities. The reason is not far to seek. Their intense interest in the past has been aesthetic and ethical, rather than archseological: chefs d'œuvre of art and literary sources, especially those of a philosophical cast or concerned with great personalities, exclusively absorbed their attention. In this we should be the last to blame them, for the history of study of the past in China runs closely parallel with that of similar studies in Britain. When once the researches of foreign goholars and students of geology, palaeontology and anthropology had laid open other fields to their interest, the national pride in Chinese culture turned to research and exploration in the field. Since 1927, the National Institute of Research in History and Philology has pursued a policy of conservation and investigation, of which the remarkable results achieved recently in Chinese pre-history and history are presented in Dr. Creel's “The Birth of China”.
The Birth of China:
a Survey of the Formative Period of Chinese Civilization. By Herrlee Glessner Creel. Pp. 396 + 16 plates. (London: Jonathan Cape, Ltd., 1936.) 15s. net.
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The Birth of China. Nature 138, 565–566 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138565a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138565a0
