Towards a Comparative History of Political Communication , c.1000-1500

Abstract

This chapter discusses the overlapping interest in political communication and mediation in recent Chinese and European historiographies. It explores a shared trend towards the social appropriation and reproduction of central (or ‘state’) authority by various kinds of intermediaries in the late Middle Ages, and underscores the use of a comparative historical inquiry in analyzing the different modalities and effects of the social appropriation of state authority in Chinese and European history.