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State and Society in Early Medieval China
$23.28
Book
State and Society in Early Medieval China
Edited by Albert E. Dien
Extending roughly from the final collapse of the Han Dynasty in A.D. 220 to the establishment of the T'ang Dynasty in 618, the Six Dynasties period in China is commonly compared to the "Dark Ages" of European history.
The political history of the period is a dismal record of disunity, intrigue, strife, and alien encroachments, seeming to amount to little more than a confusing series of dynastic names. Given such an array of fragile ands short-lived dynasties, it is natural to attempt to summarize the period, but the inadequate state of our knowledge (the historical record is sparse, fragmentary, and very difficult to interpret) makes such an attempt at best provisional.
The twelve essays in this volume are therefore to be viewed as attempts to further our knowledge of the period and to test what few generalizations we do have. The authors address a wide range of problems, including the composition of the ruling elites, the evolution of eminent families, and the nature of the state and its administration. For example, previous scholarship has portrayed the period as one dominated by powerful aristocratic clans; a revisionist view presented here argues that the leading families were neither powerful, nor aristocratic, nor clans. In almost every case the topics of the individual papers are treated here for the first time in English
The period of the Six Dynasties suggests fragmentation and disorder, and yet it is now generally recognized that the so-called fragmentation simply meant that the level of cohesion had shifted from a national to a regional level. To a large extent, what was involved were changes in the ways in which various social and political groups related to one another. The focus of this volume, then, is to explore the interfaces within Six Dynasties social and political organizations and to trace the changes in the these complex and often puzzling relationships. The editor suggests that in these developments are to be found the roots of T'ang greatness.
The contributors are William Crowell, Albert E. Dien, Patricia Ebrey, Dennis Grafflin, Jennifer Holmgren, Whalen Lai, Carl Leban, Mao Hankuang, Richard Mather, Robert M. Somers, and Tang Changru.
Albert E. Dien is Professor of Chinese at Stanford University.
This is a reproduction edition from a scanned copy of the following original edition:
Title State and society in early medieval China
Author Albert E. Dien
Editor Albert E. Dien
Contributor Albert E. Dien
Edition illustrated
Publisher Stanford University Press, 1991
ISBN 0804717451, 9780804717458
Length 414 pages
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Central Authority and Local Autonomy in the Formation of Early Modern Japan
$19.45
Book
The history of Japan in the late sixteen and early seventeenth centuries is one of increasing political stability after a century of bloody warfare. The process of state building has been largely attributed to the successful efforts of three generals, collectively referred to as the Three Unifiers or the Three Heroes, who controlled Japan more firmly than anyone had for centuries. This book argues, instead, that the administrative and institutional initiatives leading toward social, political, and economic stability came primarily from local domain and village governments.
The author explores the evolution of local administration primarily in the context of Kaga, the single largest domain and one for which there are rich collections of administrative and land tax documents. Largely based on these documents, this study is the first to suggest an active, constructive role for villagers in the development of early modern Japanese political institutions and policies, and the first detailed Western analysis of the development of late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century land taxation, the major nexus of domain village interaction.
Among the topics covered are the means of assessing land values, the allocation of land use rights, the scope of samurai administrative rights, the development of early village and district organization, the problems and reforms of the land tax system, and the transfer of administrative authority from samurai to civilian officials during the final period of domain formation.
Even where Kaga was not typical of all Japan, events there highlight the range of patterns through which lord, retainer, and village negotiated to create a mutually tolerable, if not always easy relationship. The early modern Japanese state was not as strong as it is typically pictured, and it did not possess the means to implement major changes in the social, political, and economic structure. Only the local authorizes – the domain and the village administrations – had that capability. Because major changes were a response to local conditions and priorities rather than to central edicts, these changes took place at varying rates in different domains and generally more slowly than has heretofore been assumed.
Philip C. Brown is Assistant Professor of History at Ohio State University.
This is a reproduction edition from a scanned copy of the original edition:
Title Central Authority and Local Autonomy in the Formation of Early Modern Japan: The Case of Kaga Domain
Author Philip C. Brown
Publisher Stanford University Press, 1993
ISBN 0804720363, 9780804720366
Length 312 pages
