I think one piece of Chinese narrative history that's curious and possibly relevant is: the "line of civilization" bit. The Anglo-American "history of civiliza

I think one piece of Chinese narrative history that's curious and possibly relevant is: the "line of civilization" bit. The Anglo-American "history of civilization" traces itself back through British, Roman, Greek periods. It's self aggrandisement and bias, but it demonstrates how hard it is to have a totally nationally centered history of urbanism/civilization if you want to go back a few millenia. From at least the early bronze age (5000 ybp), the other great urban eurasian-african cultures had a lot of contact. Hindu Valley, Hittite, Persian/Sumerian, Egyptian, Mesopotamian. Their "suburbs" stretched into Greece on the edge of Europe, half of Africa... China had the silk road and were aware of these distant consumers, but civilisational rivalry isn't a big part of the story. The important rivalries are either internal or "barbarian" facing. Everything was invented in China. There is no Plato (for example) sharing knowlesged sourced from india. China was always a great power, but they were never a world power (until now) because there wasn't a world, in a sense.