Archives
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Beyond Guanxi: Chinese Historical Networks
Vol. 5 No. 1 (2021)The study of Chinese historical networks is a burgeoning field, and this guest-edited special issue seeks to introduce this innovative scholarship in its variety to a broader audience beyond the field of Asian studies. As the research articles and introductions to various databases and tools in this issue underscore, Chinese historical network research draws on a wealth of historical data and digitized sources and allows us to revisit many facets of premodern and modern Chinese history from a new angle. The special issue thus offers both an introduction to the state of the field and underscores the potential of more interdisciplinary dialogue and cross-cultural comparisons, for example, on elite networks, political career paths, and the structural analysis of biographical texts and intellectual writings.
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The Ties that Bind. Ancient Politics and Network Research
Vol. 4 (2020)Wim Broekaert, Elena Köstner, Christian Rollinger (eds.)
During the last decade, the field of ancient history and classics has witnessed a slow but steady increase of publications applying to Greco-Roman history the concepts of social network analysis (SNA). While initially mainly introducing the concept of networks and connectivity in a metaphorical sense, recent research increasingly turned to the more quantitative aspects of network analysis. It is therefore quite remarkable that few attempts have been made to apply the tools of formal network analysis to a research topic ideally suited for this particular approach, viz. Greco-Roman politics. Literary sources, inscriptions and papyri offer a wealth of information on municipal and imperial elites, careers, selection procedures, and most importantly, the ties of family, marriage, friendship, patronage, and bribery that connected them. As the case studies in this special, guest-edited issue of The Journal of Historical Network Research show, SNA promises to offer new perspectives on a research field mainly dominated by more traditional prosopographical studies and at the same time provide a powerful tool for analyzing and visualizing social and political connections in ancient societies.
