Abstract In the late 18th century, the discovery of “A Letter to My Husband” (Jiwai shu), attributed to a woman named Yunzhen, caused great excitement in Beijing. Focusing on the question of how the mysterious letter captured the imagination of the literati, this article employs the strategy of contextualized reading to tease out social and cultural milieus and the textures of sentimentality of its readers. It suggests that the letter's resonating power rests on its dual nature: a self-expression of a talented and exemplary wife and a chronicle of the time when the entanglement of female talent, wifely virtue, marital love, and family tension became integral to the lives of the literati.
{"title":"Mystery and History: Revisiting “A Letter to My Husband” by Yunzhen","authors":"Weijing Lu","doi":"10.1017/jch.2023.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jch.2023.15","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the late 18th century, the discovery of “A Letter to My Husband” (Jiwai shu), attributed to a woman named Yunzhen, caused great excitement in Beijing. Focusing on the question of how the mysterious letter captured the imagination of the literati, this article employs the strategy of contextualized reading to tease out social and cultural milieus and the textures of sentimentality of its readers. It suggests that the letter's resonating power rests on its dual nature: a self-expression of a talented and exemplary wife and a chronicle of the time when the entanglement of female talent, wifely virtue, marital love, and family tension became integral to the lives of the literati.","PeriodicalId":15316,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese History","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134912013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Chanyuan Covenant of 1005 that ended decades of war between Song and Liao precipitated a new political model that, from the Song perspective, exchanged wealth, territory, and dynastic pride in return for peace along the northern frontier, civilian sovereignty over a long-dominant military class, and the replacement of a culture of arms with the love of books. That “Chanyuan Paradigm” survived the Qingli war of 1040–1044 with the Tangut Xi Xia, but was steadily overturned in the expansionist wars promoted by Shenzong and his sons from 1068 through the fall of the Northern Song in 1127. This article argues that the fragility of the Chanyuan-style peace did not stem from the aspirations of a revanchist emperor and his confidantes, but was rather the consequence of the intrinsic difficulties of maintaining peace in a world of new players, internecine political contests, and shifting geopolitical alliances that characterized the mid-eleventh century.
{"title":"The Fragility of Peace: Song China's Northwestern Frontier and Erosion of the Chanyuan Paradigm in the Mid-Eleventh Century","authors":"Paul Jakov Smith","doi":"10.1017/jch.2023.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jch.2023.18","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The Chanyuan Covenant of 1005 that ended decades of war between Song and Liao precipitated a new political model that, from the Song perspective, exchanged wealth, territory, and dynastic pride in return for peace along the northern frontier, civilian sovereignty over a long-dominant military class, and the replacement of a culture of arms with the love of books. That “Chanyuan Paradigm” survived the Qingli war of 1040–1044 with the Tangut Xi Xia, but was steadily overturned in the expansionist wars promoted by Shenzong and his sons from 1068 through the fall of the Northern Song in 1127. This article argues that the fragility of the Chanyuan-style peace did not stem from the aspirations of a revanchist emperor and his confidantes, but was rather the consequence of the intrinsic difficulties of maintaining peace in a world of new players, internecine political contests, and shifting geopolitical alliances that characterized the mid-eleventh century.","PeriodicalId":15316,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49114605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay takes a close look at Maura Dykstra's monograph Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine (Harvard Asia Center, 2022). It analyzes the book's multitude of problems, such as its flawed conception, numerous factual blunders, failure to engage existing scholarship, problematic choice of primary sources, and dubious citation practices. Most significantly, this essay aims to provide ample evidence to demonstrate how the book systematically misrepresents the majority of its primary sources to support an untenable thesis. It argues that the book's central claims are ungrounded in evidence.
{"title":"Was There an Administrative Revolution?","authors":"George Zhijian Qiao","doi":"10.1017/jch.2023.19","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jch.2023.19","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This essay takes a close look at Maura Dykstra's monograph Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine (Harvard Asia Center, 2022). It analyzes the book's multitude of problems, such as its flawed conception, numerous factual blunders, failure to engage existing scholarship, problematic choice of primary sources, and dubious citation practices. Most significantly, this essay aims to provide ample evidence to demonstrate how the book systematically misrepresents the majority of its primary sources to support an untenable thesis. It argues that the book's central claims are ungrounded in evidence.","PeriodicalId":15316,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43770082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The mobilization of women pursued by the Women's Advisory Committee (Funü zhidao weiyuanhui 婦女指導委員會) during the war against Japan (1937–1945) has mainly been associated with the wider war effort in the country and resistance to the enemy. This article takes a different viewpoint and argues that the programs implemented by women activists in this committee looked beyond the immediate wartime necessity and tried to secure also long-term gains for women. The mobilization transcended traditional gender roles of wives and mothers and paid particular attention to the involvement of middle- and lower-class women. This article examines women's activism and mobilization in the context of three main areas: first, the women's cadre training in the wartime capital Chongqing and in provinces and counties across China; second, the national economic production; and third, the literacy campaigns conducted among women factory workers. It concludes that women activists knowingly used the wartime crisis to provide fellow women with the tools for securing economic and social independence while addressing the wartime emergencies.
{"title":"Women's Activism and Mobilization in Wartime China: Cadre Training, National Economic Production, and Workers’ Literacy (1937–1945)","authors":"Federica Ferlanti","doi":"10.1017/jch.2023.17","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jch.2023.17","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The mobilization of women pursued by the Women's Advisory Committee (Funü zhidao weiyuanhui 婦女指導委員會) during the war against Japan (1937–1945) has mainly been associated with the wider war effort in the country and resistance to the enemy. This article takes a different viewpoint and argues that the programs implemented by women activists in this committee looked beyond the immediate wartime necessity and tried to secure also long-term gains for women. The mobilization transcended traditional gender roles of wives and mothers and paid particular attention to the involvement of middle- and lower-class women. This article examines women's activism and mobilization in the context of three main areas: first, the women's cadre training in the wartime capital Chongqing and in provinces and counties across China; second, the national economic production; and third, the literacy campaigns conducted among women factory workers. It concludes that women activists knowingly used the wartime crisis to provide fellow women with the tools for securing economic and social independence while addressing the wartime emergencies.","PeriodicalId":15316,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45397056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article traces the spread of a norm of confidentiality within elite political culture during the Warring States, Qin, and Western Han periods. Instead of an emphasis on secrecy within military and administrative contexts, it explores discussions of “leaking” (xie 泄/洩 or lou 漏) and characterizations of “confidentiality” (zhou 周 and mi 密) in idealized representations of political action. While Warring States texts drew upon a medical language of qi circulation to fashion a model of a perfectly leakproof ruler, by Western Han attention had shifted from rulers to officials. This valorization of official confidentiality was connected to institutional developments, especially proscriptions against leaking from privileged spaces at the imperial court, visible in sources from the late Western Han. In this final period there arose a celebrated norm of circumspection, shared by rulers and officials alike, that in theory would allow all parties to evade disaster.
{"title":"Leaking Rulers and Confidential Officials: Secrecy and Status in Early Chinese Political Culture","authors":"Luke Habberstad","doi":"10.1017/jch.2023.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jch.2023.14","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article traces the spread of a norm of confidentiality within elite political culture during the Warring States, Qin, and Western Han periods. Instead of an emphasis on secrecy within military and administrative contexts, it explores discussions of “leaking” (xie 泄/洩 or lou 漏) and characterizations of “confidentiality” (zhou 周 and mi 密) in idealized representations of political action. While Warring States texts drew upon a medical language of qi circulation to fashion a model of a perfectly leakproof ruler, by Western Han attention had shifted from rulers to officials. This valorization of official confidentiality was connected to institutional developments, especially proscriptions against leaking from privileged spaces at the imperial court, visible in sources from the late Western Han. In this final period there arose a celebrated norm of circumspection, shared by rulers and officials alike, that in theory would allow all parties to evade disaster.","PeriodicalId":15316,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46332749","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
in huge factories. The studies also show that it is beneficial, and indeed necessary, for the archaeologists who deal with matters in economy to conduct research under agendas developed by social historians, so the meaning of their material evidence can be fully appreciated by historians in cross-cultural analyses. On the other hand, historians of China have also begun to take the period into their general account of the economic development of pre-modern China. However, we are yet to see systematic analyses of the period as a whole that can both establish the theoretic framework and methodological guidelines, and also account for its archaeological as well as paleographic evidence. Such studies should have the potential to explain economic changes in the centuries during which the territorial state was formed, thus offering new explanations about the rise of the imperial economy. This is an important book, and it will be remembered as one of the stepping stones by which the study of the economic history of early China has taken off. There is still a long way to go for early China scholars to develop their own positions about the economy of early states and empires, but the way was even longer without the contributions in this book.
{"title":"Localizing Learning, the Literati Enterprise in Wuzhou, 1100–1600 By Peter K. Bol. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2022. 418 pp. $70.39 (cloth)","authors":"David Faure","doi":"10.1017/jch.2023.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jch.2023.12","url":null,"abstract":"in huge factories. The studies also show that it is beneficial, and indeed necessary, for the archaeologists who deal with matters in economy to conduct research under agendas developed by social historians, so the meaning of their material evidence can be fully appreciated by historians in cross-cultural analyses. On the other hand, historians of China have also begun to take the period into their general account of the economic development of pre-modern China. However, we are yet to see systematic analyses of the period as a whole that can both establish the theoretic framework and methodological guidelines, and also account for its archaeological as well as paleographic evidence. Such studies should have the potential to explain economic changes in the centuries during which the territorial state was formed, thus offering new explanations about the rise of the imperial economy. This is an important book, and it will be remembered as one of the stepping stones by which the study of the economic history of early China has taken off. There is still a long way to go for early China scholars to develop their own positions about the economy of early states and empires, but the way was even longer without the contributions in this book.","PeriodicalId":15316,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese History","volume":"7 1","pages":"718 - 723"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44938139","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"All Mine! Happiness, Ownership, and Naming in Eleventh-Century China By Stephen Owen. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. 208 pp. $30.00 (paper).","authors":"Anna M. Shields","doi":"10.1017/jch.2022.39","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jch.2022.39","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":15316,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese History","volume":"7 1","pages":"726 - 732"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45172446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Modern Erasures: Revolution, the Civilizing Mission, and the Shaping of China's Past By Pierre Fuller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 348 pp. £75.00 (cloth)","authors":"P. Zarrow","doi":"10.1017/jch.2023.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jch.2023.2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":15316,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese History","volume":"7 1","pages":"724 - 725"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48975501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A New History of the Song Dynasty La dynastie des Song By Christian Lamouroux. Histoire générale de la Chine (960–1279). Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2022. 816pp. 36 colored illustrations, 25 maps, chronology, bibliography, index. €35.00","authors":"Charles Hartman","doi":"10.1017/jch.2023.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jch.2023.10","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":15316,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese History","volume":"7 1","pages":"688 - 704"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45664406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The State and Goals of Economic History: A Review of Between Command and Market: Economic Thought and Practice in Early China Edited by Elisa Levi Sabattini and Christian Schwermann. Sinica Leidensia 154. Leiden: Brill, 2021. $150.00 (cloth)","authors":"Li Feng","doi":"10.1017/jch.2023.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jch.2023.9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":15316,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese History","volume":"7 1","pages":"704 - 718"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49470899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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