The Birth of Chinese Civilization

Join us for an engaging history discussion as we travel back to the Bronze Age foundations of Chinese civilization, exploring the Shang and Zhou dynasties from roughly 1600 to 256 BCE. This era witnessed the emergence of early Chinese writing on oracle bones, the rise of powerful ritual bronze culture, and the development of political ideas that would shape East Asia for millennia. From ancestral divination and warrior-kings to the philosophical breakthroughs of Confucius and Laozi, the Shang and Zhou periods were not only about kings and battles, but about the birth of enduring worldviews. We will examine how myth, ritual, warfare, and moral philosophy combined to construct the early Chinese state.

Topics for Discussion

• The Rise of the Shang Dynasty
• Oracle Bone Script and Divination
• Bronze Ritual Vessels and Ancestor Worship
• The Battle of Muye
• The Mandate of Heaven
• The Western Zhou Feudal Order
• The Spring and Autumn Period
• Confucius and Early Confucian Thought
• Daoism and Laozi
• The Warring States and the Hundred Schools of Thought