Chapter 2 The main content of the second section of book history

When it comes to books, people usually think of the internal and external images of modern books. At most, they can think of the internal and external images of ancient books thread-bound or ancient book bags. It is hard to imagine books that are ancient.In fact, the books that modern people can usually imagine are still the concept of formal books.Little do they know that the appearance of regular books is not only a matter of the development of the entire human society until very late, but also a matter of human society entering the civilization period very late.Early written records, such as oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, stone inscriptions, etc., are not official books, but they have made various preparations for the production of official books, or they are the specific form of early Chinese books, or They are the initial form of Chinese books.Therefore, the history of ancient Chinese books is naturally divided into two stages, one is the stage of early books, and the other is the stage of regular books.The task of book history is to trace the development track of books in these two stages and reveal their evolution law.

Books are a special social product, which has both material form and ideology at the same time.All books, whether they are early books or regular books, are the reflection of a certain consciousness of people.In the classless primitive society, people are divided into clans and tribes; after entering class society, people are divided into classes and strata.We know that in a class society, everyone lives in a certain class status, and all kinds of ideas are branded with class.That is to say, in a class society, people of all classes and strata, regardless of whether they admit it or not, their thoughts, feelings, ideology, observation of society, understanding of life, and interpretation of social phenomena and solutions to various problems etc., all inevitably have a class color.This kind of class consciousness that objectively exists in people's minds is reflected in books, which also makes books have class characteristics.

In a class society, people's ideology is not only restricted by class, but also restricted by the times.Different eras in ancient China also have different characteristics of the times.Xia, Shang, and Zhou were the era of slavery, although they had different characteristics of the times from the subsequent feudal era.The same feudal era, due to the change of dynasties, is also divided into several different historical periods.In each historical period, due to the different political, economic and cultural policies implemented by the rulers, there are also many different characteristics of the times.These different characteristics of the times are reflected in people's minds and refracted in books, which also make books have the characteristics of the times.

Of course, people of the same class, or even the same class, and living in the same era, have different feelings about the cruelty of the world due to different experiences in their lives.Even the same author may show different attitudes towards life and different thoughts and emotions due to changes in status or social practice before and after.All of these are reflected in the works and refracted in the books, which also make the books have their own characteristics. So some people say that once a book is produced, it will dissociate from people's subjective consciousness by virtue of its material carrier and become an objective existence.In other words, books are a materialized thinking, a frozen consciousness.This determines that no matter whether the content of the book is materialistic or idealistic, beautiful or ugly, true or false, right or wrong, the consciousness it contains has an independent form.This is one aspect of book composition.

There are only two media for the communication of human consciousness. One is to spread it through rap and speech, and the other is to materialize it through books.Therefore, when a certain consciousness of people, whether it is natural science, humanities, or social science, as long as it is materialized into an independent ideology, it also has a corresponding material form. This is another form of books. one aspect. The physical form of books, including text, text carrier, carrier material, material shape and binding form, etc. Words are the basic condition for the formation of books. Under any circumstances, it is impossible to produce books without words.Words not only undertake the task of forming ideology, but also affect the internal and external conditions of the material form of books.For example, the characteristics of square characters in Chinese characters affect that Chinese books can be written vertically from right to left, printed vertically, and arranged vertically, and thus affect the characteristics of binding on the right side of Chinese books and the spine on the right; they can also write horizontally and vertically from left to right. Printing and horizontal arrangement, and thus affect the characteristics of Chinese books that can be bound on the left and the spine is on the left.However, some ethnic minority languages ​​and foreign languages ​​such as English, French, Russian, and German can only be written horizontally and arranged horizontally from left to right, so they can only be bound on the left side, with the spine on the left, and it is absolutely impossible to write vertically. , vertically.This shows that characters are not only the preconditions for making books, but also affect the layout and external form of books.

In addition to being conceivable in the human mind, as long as characters appear objectively, there must be a problem of attaching materials, or in other words, there must be a problem of carrier.The carrier of text is actually the material for making books.Various ancient nations in the world have used different materials in the development of their books.Foreigners have successively used papyrus, leaves, bark, brick carvings, wax plates, copper leaves, lead leaves, gold leaves, linen cloth, sheepskin, calf skin, and even human skin; China has successively used tortoise shells and animal bones. , human skulls, bronzes, stone drums, steles, stone tablets, stone flakes, jade flakes, cliff stones, bamboo slips, wooden calf, silk, etc.It was very late when humans generally used paper to make books.

Due to the different carriers of words, or the different materials for making books, the methods of making books, or the production methods of books are also different.It has been a long and tortuous process from knife carving, pen writing, engraving, clay movable type, wooden movable type, metal movable type to the common use of lead movable type for printing books by all mankind.Before paper became the material for making books, it was unimaginable that books would be produced by printing.Similarly, in the case of oracle bones, stones, and jade pieces as materials for making books, I am afraid that books can only be made by carving with a knife or writing with a pen, and it is impossible to use printing.In ancient India and Southeast Asia, Bedouin leaves were used as text carriers to make books, and manuscripts could only be carved on Bedouin leaves with iron pens, and it was impossible to produce Bayeux books by printing.It can be seen that different book making materials have correspondingly different book making methods.

Due to the different materials and production methods of books, the form of books is affected, or the external form of books is also different.Irregular pieces of oracle bones can only be bound by drilling holes in the middle; pieces of regular bamboo and wood slips can be connected or woven with ropes; The binding form can be rolled up for storage or stacked for storage.Paper has the softness of silk and is easier to shape. Therefore, it was first imitated by silk and used to roll, and then folded and whirlwind appeared.When the book production method undergoes a huge change, that is, the conversion from handwriting to engraving will affect the complete transition of the book binding form to the leaf-style butterfly binding, bag-back binding and thread binding.

All of the above are the material elements of the book, or they are combined to form the material form of the book.It is an important task for the history of ancient Chinese books to study the ideology and material form of books, as well as the interaction and internal connection between them, reveal their connotation and extension, and summarize the laws of their development and evolution. Although the research objects of ancient Chinese book history are ancient Chinese books, books are the product of society and the crystallization of the three major revolutionary movements of human production struggle, class struggle and scientific experiment.Conversely, books are one of the driving forces for recording history, reflecting history, summarizing the three major revolutionary movements, and promoting the continuous development of history and the three major revolutionary movements.What kind of ideology, what kind of attitude towards life, and what kind of world view constitute the content of the book; what kind of material is used as the material of the book, what kind of technology is used as the method of making the book, and what kind of craft is used to form the content of the book. Neither the internal form nor the external form of a book can be freely chosen, but has its historical inevitability in its development.Therefore, the research object of book history is not only the history of books themselves, but also the book industry that can affect the production tendency, production quantity and circulation tendency of books.

The so-called book cause refers to the book activities in human social activities.It includes not only the book activities under the national administrative promotion, but also the book activities under the appreciation and criticism of human culture.Studying the rise and fall of book production and circulation under the circumflex of these two aspects is the whole content of the book business. The development of books, including the evolution of books themselves and the development of the book industry, has its historical inevitability.The so-called inevitability is the law.The so-called law refers to the inevitable internal connection inherent in the book itself and the inevitable external connection in the rise and fall of the book industry, as well as the inevitable relationship between the two.Revealing the objective laws of the evolution of books themselves, explaining the historical inevitability of the rise and fall of books, and summarizing their different developments in different historical backgrounds is another task that the history of ancient Chinese books should undertake.

Starting from the two stages of early books and formal books; elaborating from the two aspects of ideology and material form; focusing on the background of the entire book industry, it constitutes the method, structure and content of the study of ancient Chinese book history.