Paul Smith At Princeton University Next Year

While at the Institute for Advanced Study, Smith will continue work on Faces of War in Mid-Song China, a study of the intersection of war and politics. The founders of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) consolidated their regime by replacing warfare with peace payments as the primary tool for securing the borders, courting literati through a robust policy of "advancing civil teachings and suppressing military affairs," and transforming the once-powerful officer corps into a demeaned appendage of the literati state. This approach to governance through demilitarization was challenged in 1040 when a Tangut invasion of Shaanxi humiliated Song defenders. The frustrations incited by the 1040s war initiated a century-long cycle of remilitarization that backfired with the loss of North China to the Jurchen Jin in 1127 and came to a conclusive end when the truncated Southern Song (1127-1279) returned to the policy of purchasing peace in 1142. Faces of War focuses on the power of war to transform political agendas and launch unexpected men to power. By highlighting representative clusters of individuals who personified the politics of war, I show how in this evolution from a war of necessity (the 1040s) through wars of choice (1068 to ca. 1125) to a war of desperation (1127 to 1142), decisions about national strategy and ultimately the fate of the realm increasingly fell to policy entrepreneurs, adventurers, eunuchs, and military strongmen whose growing power challenged the ideal of literati control proclaimed by the Song founders.