Foreword

Nearly two-thirds of a century have now elapsed since the publication of Karl A. Wittfogel and Feng Chia-sheng’s landmark “History of Chinese Society: Liao (907–1125)” in 1946. Within the still comparatively small fund of Western-language secondary sources on the subject, “History of Chinese Society: Liao (907–1125)” remains, just as it did at the time of its appearance, a crucial initial resource—an uneclipsed starting point. Although it has surfaced only sporadically, in the interim decades, additional scholarship in the mold of this pioneering work has nonetheless emerged and assuredly advanced our knowledge of the people known in history as the Kitan (also, Khitan or Qidan). These scholarly efforts have not only deepened our understanding of the history of the Kitan but also apprised us crucially of other vital aspects of their culture. Indeed, only through these subsequent studies inspired by and much in the vein of Wittfogel and Feng’s original have we become more fully informed than in the past about the pastoral nomadic basis of the economy that sustained Kitan life as well as privy to the mask-obsessed mortuary customs that so often attended Kitan death.

As readers of the Journal’s first-ever theme volume, we are at this very time quite fortunate. We are auspiciously positioned and privileged with the unique opportunity of being able to absorb and profit from the present battery of multifarious approaches to and observations on this single topic of the Kitan, specifically during the two centuries of their cultural efflorescence as a unified people along the northern Chinese frontier under their dynasty named Liao. Readers will herein find eight cohesive essays on the Kitan, with each confirming the present level of mature attainment in the subfield of Liao dynasty studies while, simultaneously, serving as a fertile touchstone for new directions in research. Through the deft editorship of Valerie Hansen, François Louis, and Daniel Kane, who graciously also provide their own separate contributions, the authors Michal Biran, Pamela Crossley, Youn-mi Kim, Anya King, and Kirill Solonin supply us with a wide-ranging yet integrated collection of seminally illuminating studies—one that not only reflects the exalted accomplishment of current investigations into the Kitan Liao but also thoroughly and creatively harbingers its potential promise.