From the founding of the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE to the present, the Chinese have been preoccupied with the concept of order (zhi). This cultural preoccupation has found expression not only in China's highly refined bureaucratic institutions and methods of social and economic organization but also in Chinese philosophy, religious and secular ritual, and a number of comprehensive...(展开全部)

Despite the importance of books and the written word in Chinese society, the history of the book in China is a topic that has been little explored. This pioneering volume of essays, written by historians, art historians, and literary scholars, introduces the major issues in the social and cultural history of the book in late imperial China. Informed by many insights from the ri...(展开全部)

罗友枝（Evelyn S. Rawski），匹兹堡大学历史系教授，研究方向为近代东亚和中国近代史，着重于大众史、大众文化和社会礼俗史的研究，著有《中国南方的农业变化与农业经济》《清代中国的教育与大众文化》及《十八世纪的中国社会》(合著)等。 黎安友（Andrew J. Nathan），哥伦比亚大学政治学系教授、东亚研究所主任，研究方向为中国政治与外交政策、比较政治等，著有《中国的民主》《中国政治变迁之路》《长城与空城计：中国寻求安全的战略》等。 姜士彬（David G. Johnson），加州大学伯克利分校中国研究中心教授，早年专注中古中国士族研究，近年关注明清大众文化研究，著有《中古中国的寡头政治》《景观与祭祀：中国北方乡村生活的仪式基础》等。

Our relationship with things abounds with paradoxes. People assign value to objects in ways that are often deeply personal or idiosyncratic yet at the same time rooted in specific cultural and historical contexts. How do things become meaningful? How do our connections with the world of things define us? In Ming and Qing China, inquiry into things and their contradictions flour...(展开全部)

Our relationship with things abounds with paradoxes. People assign value to objects in ways that are often deeply personal or idiosyncratic yet at the same time rooted in specific cultural and historical contexts. How do things become meaningful? How do our connections with the world of things define us? In Ming and Qing China, inquiry into things and their contradictions flour...(展开全部)

Our relationship with things abounds with paradoxes. People assign value to objects in ways that are often deeply personal or idiosyncratic yet at the same time rooted in specific cultural and historical contexts. How do things become meaningful? How do our connections with the world of things define us? In Ming and Qing China, inquiry into things and their contradictions flour...(展开全部)

Asserting that litigation in late imperial China was a form of documentary warfare, this book offers a social analysis of the men who composed legal documents for commoners and elites alike. Litigation masters—a broad category of legal facilitators ranging from professional plaintmasters to simple but literate men to whom people turned for assistance—emerge in this study as cen...(展开全部)

During the late imperial era (1500-1911), China, though divided by ethnic, linguistic, and regional differences at least as great as those prevailing in Europe, enjoyed a remarkable solidarity. What held Chinese society together for so many centuries? Some scholars have pointed to the institutional control over the written word as instrumental in promoting cultural homogenizati...(展开全部)