Center For Chinese Studies Research Articles

ALAN RICHARD SWEETEN: Christianity in rural China: conflict and accommodation in Jiangxi Province, 1860–1900. (Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies No. 91.) xii, 281 pp. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2001. $50.

ALAN RICHARD SWEETEN: Christianity in rural China: conflict and accommodation in Jiangxi Province, 1860–1900. (Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies No. 91.) xii, 281 pp. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2001. $50.

Sui-Tang Chang'an: a Study in the Urban History of Medieval China. By Victor Cunrui Xiong. Center for Chinese Studies. Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan, 2000.

Sui-Tang Chang'an: a Study in the Urban History of Medieval China. By Victor Cunrui Xiong. Center for Chinese Studies. Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan, 2000.

Swallows and Settlers: The Great Migration from North China to Manchuria. By Thomas R. Gottschang and Diana Lary. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2000. Pp. xvii, 231. $45.00.

From the 1890s through the 1930s millions of Chinese farmers and workers migrated from North China, principally from Shandong and Hebei provinces, to seek employment in Manchuria. Their migration was motivated by the opportunities in new industries, as well as in agriculture, and was facilitated by the opening of railways at the turn of the century. Manchuria was one of the most unusual and prized pieces of geopolitical real estate in the world. The homeland of China's Manchu rulers, it was sparsely populated under their dynastic regime (1644–191l), partly because of its ban on migration, which was occasionally lifted during periods of famine in North China. With the decline of the dynasty's power in the nineteenth century, Manchuria became the focus of Russian territorial ambition, to be followed in the twentieth century by relentless Japanese encroachment culminating in the creation of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932. “From 1906 until 1931 Manchuria was a complex patchwork of Chinese, Japanese, and Russian spheres of authority” (p. 49).

The Matrix of Lyric Transformation: Poetic Modes and Self-Presentation in Early Chinese Pentasyllabic Poetry (review)

Reviewed by: The Matrix of Lyric Transformation: Poetic Modes and Self-presentation in Early Chinese Pentasyllabic Poetry Li Yanfeng (bio) Zong-qi Cai . The Matrix of Lyric Transformation: Poetic Modes and Self-presentation in Early Chinese Pentasyllabic Poetry. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, 75. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1996. x, 259 pp. Hardcover $50.00, ISBN 0-89264-111-8. In this analysis of two forms of poetry (yuefu and gushi) and two poets (Cao Zhi and Ruan Ji) of the Han dynasty, Zong-qi Cai presents a study of the transformation of pentasyllabic poetry from about the first to the third centuries, not only providing abundant supporting commentaries by the major Chinese critics—both historical and modern—but also applying the structuralist approach on a macro level by constructing a model of four modes and one thread that links them up. Within this model are detailed examinations of the text. In addition, Cai presents two major poets and their works as examples. The emphasis in the book is divided equally between constructing an overall model and examining the works of these two poets. This kind of model and this kind of approach to the poetry of this period has not been done in other books on the subject. The four modes are dramatic, narrative, lyrical, and symbolic, and the thread is the styles and themes in the way that the poets present themselves. Cai fruitfully explores the progression of development from the dramatic mode to the symbolic mode. Cai's first argument regarding the transformation from the dramatic to the narrative mode is that the traditional attempt to classify folk yuefu and literati yuefu—a model that relies on textual analysis such as the dating and authorship of a work—should be abandoned; instead, the criterion for classification should be the artistic features of a poem regardless of who wrote it or when it was written (p. 28). Under this new approach, poems that are characterized by collective composition and performance are seen as belonging in the dramatic mode of folk yuefu, and poems that have a sole narrative speaker in the narrative mode of literati yuefu (p. 29). This approach in discussing Han yuefu is quite creative. The book's contribution to an understanding of the dramatic and narrative modes of folk yuefu includes a summary of seven characteristics (pp. 30-49) that significantly highlight the importance of applying the concept of the dramatic mode in the interpretation of certain early poems of the period. Since the important influence of dramatic performance on poetry in the early Han is not sufficiently understood, it becomes quite productive to interpret these poems in the light of dramatic performance. The transition from folk to literati yuefu is marked by the replacement of the multiple storyteller by a sole (or noninteractive) storyteller (p. 49), which is shown here largely by making reference to living oral traditions in certain cultures [End Page 402] to understand how folk yuefu may have been composed in ancient times. For example, Cai demonstrates that the way in which the folk songs of the Lang minority (in Guangxi Province) are composed orally reflects how the folk yuefu were composed during the Han dynasty (p. 49). Cai's argument is convincing, although historically it is likely that the yuefu we see as folksongs were created through a more complex process. Cai uses the presence or absence of a noninteractive storyteller as a criterion for classifying yuefu as folk or literati. This assumption may need reexamination, because apparently some folk yuefu also include poems spoken by individual speakers. In addition, Cai argues for the speaker in folk yuefu to be a storyteller, while in literati yuefu the speaker becomes a character in the poem who not only narrates the poem but plays a role in it. This argument is somewhat unconvincing, however, because the shift from narrator to character did not originate with yuefu—it can actually be seen as early as the Book of Songs, as C. T. Wang has argued (The Bell and the Drum [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974], pp. 58-97). I wish Cai had explained how this shift in...

Landscape, Culture, and Power in Chinese Society (review)

Reviewed by: Landscape, Culture, and Power in Chinese Society Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt (bio) Wen-hsin Yeh , editor. Landscape, Culture, and Power in Chinese Society. China Research Monograph 49. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies and Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, 1998. xv, 153 pp. Paperback $15.00, ISBN 1-55729-061-X. Landscape, Culture, and Power in Chinese Society is a set of five essays developed from papers presented at a symposium of the same name at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California-Berkeley, in March of 1996. The theme was the idea of Wen-hsin Yeh, who has also edited the volume and written the introduction. The participant-essayists represent the broadest range of fields in which the interrelation between landscape, culture, and power are addressed in current sinology. Moreover, each is a scholar who is extremely active in his or her discipline and who has dealt with one or more aspects of the subject in previous writings. Each essay stands alone as a contribution to its own field. At the same time, the collection in this book represents the best of interdisciplinary studies. The success of the volume as a collaborative effort no doubt is largely due to Yeh, who, as she tells us in her introduction, framed the way in which she hoped the essays would address a potentially broad subject essentially unbounded by temporal limitations (the Song period to the present). Yeh seeks answers to two questions: what does an attention to space teach us about power relationships and the cultural dynamics that shaped Chinese society, and what is peculiarly Chinese about the function of space as a medium for the negotiation of power? The first author, Martin Powers, explores these questions through Chinese landscape painting in an essay called "When Is Landscape Like a Body?" Using poetry, inscriptions on paintings, and writings by painters, mostly of the Song dynasty, Powers argues that the rise of the landscape as a subject in post-Tang painting was a reflection of social and societal change. He suggests that Song officials whose status and position had come by way of the civil service exam sought painting subjects that were different from those of the hereditary aristocracy of Tang China. He concedes that the subject matter of Tang painting was carried into the Song dynasty—but, he explains, in new contexts. The change had to do with what Powers calls a "gestural theory of pictorial expression." In the writings of the tenth-century painter-essayist Jing Hao and the eleventh-century essayist on painting Guo Ruoxu, the vocabulary of Chinese painting comes to include words like qi, feng, shi, and tai, which Powers translates as "character," "manner," "gesture," and "demeanor." Drawing from studies of British and other European landscape painting by J. Barrell, A. Bermingham, S. Daniels, and W.J.T. Mitchell, among others, Powers turns to the vocabulary of Song landscapists to explain his theory of the "body" of Song landscape painting, concluding that landscape can [End Page 270] be a "site for negotiating cultural hegemony." Powers ends with a strong and specific conclusion, four features of the "competition between social groups" as it is "projected onto natural imagery": (1) Social and political discourse is opportunistic; (2) in China, discursive evolution was dialectical; (3) style can encode deep suppositions about identity; and (4) the fundamental rhetorical advantage offered by landscape was its lack of artifice. Those who have read Martin Powers are used to such bold ideas. Not all Chinese painting experts will agree with him, but they will find in this essay challenges to the study of Song landscape painting as it is customarily expounded. In the second essay, Linda Walton investigates academies of the Southern Song as a means of understanding societal changes in the period. She sees the establishment and naming of academies in Southeast China as a direct result of the rise of Neo-Confucianism, specifically of the response of Neo-Confucians to the "sacred geography" of Buddhism and Daoism—for example, the Four Famous Buddhist Mountains and the Five Marchmounts. Even though feng and shan sacrifices at sacred peaks had been prescribed since earliest times in order to ensure the...

Landscape, Culture, and Power in Chinese Society. Ed. Wen-Hsin Yeh. pp. 153. Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies University of California Berkeley, Centre for Chinese Studies, 1998.

Landscape, Culture, and Power in Chinese Society. Ed. Wen-Hsin Yeh. pp. 153. Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies University of California Berkeley, Centre for Chinese Studies, 1998. - Volume 9 Issue 3

Controlling From Afar: The Daoguang Emperor's Management of the Grand Canal Crisis, 1824–1826. By Jane Kate Leonard. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1996. x, 331 pp. $25.00 (paper).

Controlling From Afar: The Daoguang Emperor's Management of the Grand Canal Crisis, 1824–1826. By Jane Kate Leonard. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1996. x, 331 pp. $25.00 (paper). - Volume 58 Issue 4

Chinese Archives: An Introductory Guide (review)

Reviewed by: Chinese Archives: An Introductory Guide Nelson Chou (bio) Ye Wa and Joseph W. Esherick. Chinese Archives: An Introductory Guide. China Research Monograph, no. 45. Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1996. viii, 355 pp. Paperback $23.50. ISBN 1-55729-047-4. The Chinese people are acutely aware of the importance of keeping written records. Both the rulers and the ruled in China have always regarded history as a mirror of the future, and they have also known that keeping records of all kinds is the key to preserving the authenticity of history. In ancient China, almost all government agencies maintained an archival office within their individual establishments. However, on many occasions throughout China's long history, written records, including archives, have suffered destruction not only as the result of war or natural disaster but also, and primarily, for political reasons. This was especially true during periods when the rulership had just undergone change. The new rulers would almost always destroy records deemed damaging to the new regime. This political censorship has presented serious problems for keeping archival records complete and intact. Indeed, keeping these records complete in China has been a virtually impossible task for those entrusted with it. Ruling parties have frequently carried out literary inquisitions and manufactured forgeries to suit their own political purposes. This does not mean that one cannot find value in or make use of the available archival records; one just has to be careful how to read them. As the compilers of Chinese Archives: An Introductory Guide point out, "Archival research offers the best opportunity for original findings" (p. 3). However, these findings should be verified against other written materials—genealogical records and personal memoirs, for example. In addition to the national archives, specialized archives, and the archives in Taiwan, this Guide also covers archives in twenty-five provinces, two self-governing regions, and three large municipalities. All local archives are entered under these major headings. Since there is no index at the end of the volume, the reader may find it difficult to locate a specific archive in the main text. Nevertheless, this is definitely an important reference tool, regardless of its deficiencies, some of which are discussed below. Despite the wide regional coverage in the Guide, the actual number of archives included is only 17 percent of all existing Chinese archives (p. 30). This lack of completeness, as the compilers themselves acknowledge, is perhaps the major weakness. Of course, one has no quarrel with the compilers' claim that "a guide to even this small number is a significant advance over having no guide at all" (p. 30). Another serious drawback is that the compilers obviously did not personally visit the individual archives listed. They have relied primarily on secondhand information [End Page 564] in assembling this work, and, as a result, there are shortcomings. The description of individual archives is unbalanced: the longest is twelve pages, while the shortest is just a couple of lines, and the compilers are not certain about either the public accessibility of many of the archives or what limitations may be placed on their use (p. 19). In a revised edition, it would be desirable to add an index at the end to facilitate the search for individual archives. Other minor errors should also be corrected: In the Table of Contents, Heilongjiang is misspelled as "Heijongjiang." Xinfang ju on page 16, siyan sikuan on page 25, and chengjian dang'an on page 29 are not found in the glossary. On page 32, under Library Abbreviations, instead of Gest Oriental Library and East Asian Collections—the official title of the Princeton University Library—"East Asian Library" is erroneously given. And the title of the Library at UCLA is not "East Asian Collection" but the Richard C. Rudolph East Asian Library. These shortcomings notwithstanding, the Guide has a well-written introduction, and it should be very helpful to researchers in China studies. [End Page 565] Nelson Chou Nelson Chou is a librarian/professor at Rutgers University; his research interests are the history of Chinese libraries and library science development, and computational linguistics of modern Chinese. Copyright © 1999 University of...

Redefining history: ghosts, spirits, and human society in P'u Sung-ling's world, 1640-1715

This fascinating new book by Chun-shu Chang and Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang follows the career, times, and ideas of P'u Sung-ling (1640-1715) and focuses its discussion on his magnum opus, Liao-chai chih- i, or Tales of the Unusual from the Studio of Deliberation and Musing. P'u lived through the turbulent period of Ming-Ch'ing dynastic transition in the seventeenth century and he aspired, as did millions of young men of his time, to pass the Imperial Civil Service Examinations necessary for securing a government position.While P'u did not attain his goal of becoming a statesman, having failed exam after exam for fifty years, he was not impeded in his intellectual and literary pursuits. When he died in 1715, he left a body of work including over 500 essays, 1,295 poems, 119 lyrics, 18 encyclopedias and handbooks, 20 operas, 100 folk songs, and 500 short stories. He went on to become one of the most well-known scholar-writers and the best known short-story author in Chinese history. The 500 stories in Liao-chai chih-i, which P'u composed in his self-styled capacity as historian, had the most lasting influence of any single work on the shaping of popular consciousness in China.Following the life and literature of one man, this study sets out to detail the history of the Ming-Ch'ing dynastic transition in the East Shantung region. It is based on an exhaustive exploration of contemporary Chinese historical and literary sources, including local histories, clan and family records, autobiographical and biographical materials, folklore, essays, poems, and plays: in short, the entire range of literary sources. Using a comprehensive historical approach, the authors cover a broad array of issues relevant to the topic at hand.Redefining is an important source for the study of Chinese history and literature and comparative historical studies. It will also appeal to people interested in the relation between history and literature, issues of gender and class, race relations, biographical studies, and popular culture movements.Chun-shu Chang is Professor of History, University of Michigan, and Honorary Professor of Chinese History, China. Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang is Visiting Associate Professor of History and Research Associate, Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.

The Matrix of Lyric Transformation: Poetic Mode and Self-Presentation in Early Chinese Pentasyllabic Poetry. By Zong-qi Cai. Ann Arbor.: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1996. 259 pp. $50.00.

The Matrix of Lyric Transformation: Poetic Mode and Self-Presentation in Early Chinese Pentasyllabic Poetry. By Zong-qi Cai. Ann Arbor.: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1996. 259 pp. $50.00.

Conflicting Counsels to Confuse the Age: A Documentary Study of Political Economy in Qing China, 1644–1840. Compiled by Helen Dunstan. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1996. Pp. 363.

Conflicting Counsels to Confuse the Age: A Documentary Study of Political Economy in Qing China, 1644–1840. Compiled by Helen Dunstan. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1996. Pp. 363. - Volume 58 Issue 3

Controlling from Afar: The Daoguang Emperor's Management of the Grand Canal Crisis, 1824-1826 (review)

© 1998 by University ofHawai'i Press Reviews 469 political stability" (p. 150), this does not mean that corruption is any way an inevitable concomitant to the realization ofthese goals, especially not measured on the scale by which it seems to flourish in China. Kwong ends with a brieflisting ofthe bare essentials necessary to right the balance—revising the official culture to make goals and guidelines more practical, and effective law enforcement that knows no favor—but avoids the question of whether this is likely or even possible under a regime whose primary objective is to maintain itselfin power. Ifin fact corruption has become part ofthe system by which the Communist Party maintains its control of die state, then it is likely to remain part of the system, even if that control is loosened or even lost. Nevertheless Kwong's book stands out as a concise and valuable approach to a very real dilemma, using a historical approach to identify, define, and describe the problem in the Chinese context. James D. White University ofHawai'i at Mänoa James D. White is aformerjournalist and businessman who workedfor manyyears in Asia and is now a graduate student in the Department ofPolitical Science, researching information flows into and out ofAsia. Jane Kate Leonard. Controllingfrom Afar: The Daoguang Emperor's Management ofthe Grand Canal Crisis, 1824-1826. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, vol. 69. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University ofMichigan, 1996. xxv, 331 pp. isbn 0-89264-114-2. The Daoguang reign (1821-1850) is one ofthe most studied—and most maligned —in late imperial history. Its negative image is grounded in a scholarship that links the many humiliations suffered by China from the Opium War (18391842 ) on to bureaucratic decline and a failure ofimperial leadership that began around the turn ofthe century. There can be litde doubt diat the Qing (16441911 ) entered the nineteenth century faced with huge problems. China's booming population left many peasants without land and taxed die resources and ingenuity ofoverworked officials. Corruption in the late eighteenth century eroded bureaucratic discipline and emptied the national treasury, problems the Jiaqing (1796-1820) emperor's reforms did litde to alleviate. The growth ofthe opium trade in the 1820s raised new concerns about economic stability and social and 470 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall 1998 political morality. The dynasty's subsequent defeat at the hands offoreigners presaged its inability to squelch the Taiping rebellion. It is litde wonder that imperial administration in this period has been depicted as a corrupt, inept, inflexible, and factionalized bureaucracy guided by an emperor who ruled as the hidebound conservator of a dynasty in decline. In Controllingfrom Afar: The Daoguang Emperor's Management ofthe Grand Canal Crisis , 1824-26, Jane Kate Leonard forcefully rejects this view, criticizing it as the product of "decades of Opium War scholarship whose Eurocentric assumptions have generally discredited the reign and have discouraged the careful study ofits early years" (p. 3). Leonard takes as a focus one of the institutions seen by critics as central to the problems of dynastic decline: the grain tribute administration. By the nineteenth century, the immense hydraulic system and transport network that encompassed the Grand Canal and the Yellow River was troubled by technological and administrative problems. The dynasty's continued reliance on the Grand Canal for the transport of tribute grain to Beijing is frequently cited as an example of the Qing's inability to undertake meaningful reform ofcorrupt institutions. In the eyes of Daoguang's critics, the 1824 crisis presented the emperor with an opportunity to cast off a system bedeviled by technical problems, official corruption, unruly boatmen, and merchant greed in favor of the unsullied simplicity of shipment of tribute grain by sea. The crisis began in the fall of 1824, when empty barges returning south to be reloaded for the annual shipment of tribute grain were trapped north of the Yellow River by fluctuating water levels in the river and the great reservoir of Hongze Lake. Daoguang berated his officials for delays and demanded action. Although this immediate problem was overcome and the fleet continued south, winter storms collapsed the Gaoyan dike along the eastern edge of Hongze...

Painting and Calligraphy in the Wu-tsa-tsu: Conservative Aesthetics in Seventeenth-Century China. By Sewall J. Oertling. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1997. viii, 217 pp. $50.00 (cloth).

Painting and Calligraphy in the Wu-tsa-tsu: Conservative Aesthetics in Seventeenth-Century China. By Sewall J. Oertling. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1997. viii, 217 pp. $50.00 (cloth). - Volume 57 Issue 3

Helen Dunstan: Conflicting counsels to confuse the age: a documentary study of political economy in Qing China, 1644–1840. (Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, Vol.73.) 363 pp. Ann Arbor: Center For Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1996. $50.

Helen Dunstan: Conflicting counsels to confuse the age: a documentary study of political economy in Qing China, 1644–1840. (Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, Vol.73.) 363 pp. Ann Arbor: Center For Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1996. $50.

Pearl from the Dragon's Mouth: Evocation of Feeling and Scene in Chinese Poetry (review)

© 1998 by University ofHawai'i Press Reviews 251 economic development. It would also serve well as a case study from which to generate discussion in graduate seminars. Eugene Cooper University ofSouthern California Eugene Cooper is an associateprofessor ofanthropology and EastAsian studies with recent research experience in the rural industrial sector ofZhejiangProvince. Cecile Chu-chin Sun. Pearlfrom the Dragon's Mouth: Evocation ofFeeling and Scene in Chinese Poetry. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, vol. 67. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University ofMichigan, 1995. xvi, 248 pp. Hardcover, isbn 0-89264-110-x. Sooner or later, every student oftraditional Chinese poetry and poetics has to grapple with the special vocabulary that Chinese poets have used to critique, qualify, and just talk about their art. As scholars have pointed out, much ofthis critical terminology is itselfpoetic—notoriously allergic to paraphrase, and as redolent with meaning as the most evocative lines of a Tang quatrain. In many cases, terms are drawn from the pool ofthe most common words and then organized into pairs. By pairing these everyday words in sometimes unexpected combinations , writers defamiliarize them, drawing attention to their specialized significance in the context ofliterary discussion. FengM1 and gu UT—"wind" and "bone"—is a pair that comes readily to mind, as does the ever untranslatable bi XL· and xingjPI. But one pair ofterms stands out as being particularly resistant to this type ofdefamiliarization: qingIff andjingS, sometimes translated as "sentiment " and "milieu," sometimes as "feeling" and "scene." Contrary to what one might expect, the very familiarity ofthese two words constitutes a challenge to the scholar with hopes of understanding either the meaning ofthis dyad, or the history ofChinese poetics through the lens it provides. The difficulty is compounded by the widespread, if tacit, presence of qingandjingin almost all aspects of traditional Chinese poetic thought. Yet this is the challenge taken up, first by the Song dynasty literati who brought the qing-jingcompound into the arena ofliterary discourse, and then by the many traditional scholars ofclassical poetics who inherited the questions thereby raised. Most recently, in Pearlfrom the Dragon's Mouth: Evocation ofFeeling and Scene in Chinese Poetry, Professor Cecile Chu-chin Sun sets out to provide 252 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring 1998 a chronological overview ofboth the theory and praxis of qing-jing discourse. Her ambitious study begins witii the Han dynasty exegeses of the Shijing and closes with the theoretical discussions ofWang Fuzhi and Wang Guowei, the Qing dynasty literary thinkers most closely identified with the use of these terms. Sun's book is the first full-length treatment in English exclusively devoted to studying "how the critical perception of this essential phenomenon has evolved throughout the Chinese tradition" (p. xiii).' Wisely wary of suggesting that hers will be the definitive and complete work on a vast and complex topic, the author warns that she has limited the parameters ofher discussion to "the most crucial phases" ofits evolution. She lends further precision to her goals by proposing to the Western reader a window on "what Chinese poets and critics themselves have perceived poetry to be" (p. ix), as distinct from, one assumes, presenting either a personal or a comparative view of the tradition. Sun walks us through the history of the "feeling-scene" issue of Chinese poetics in four "phases," apparently borrowing the nomenclature for each phase from James J. Y. Liu's Chinese Theories ofLiterature, the pragmatic phase, the affective phase, the aesthetic phase, and, finally, the synthetic phase.2 Although the terms are modern and carry a certain New Critical air ofscientific methodology, the periodization they describe predates that approach by at least a couple of centuries . Specifically, Sun associates the pragmatic phase with the Han dynasty, a period when the Confucian view of poetry as a didactic tool was dominant. She labels the Six Dynasties period the affective phase, when the rising influence of Taoism contributed to a new critical sensibility, liberating poetry from its didactic role and conferring upon it the power of expressing human emotion, usually through the evocation of imagery drawn from the natural world. The Tang dynasty , then, corresponds to the culmination ofboth the awareness and the application of the interplay...

The Imperial Style of Inquiry in Twentieth-Century China: The Emergence of New Approaches. Donald J. Munro. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1996. xviii, 139 pp. $50.00. (paper).

The Imperial Style of Inquiry in Twentieth-Century China: The Emergence of New Approaches. Donald J. Munro. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1996. xviii, 139 pp. $50.00. (paper). - Volume 57 Issue 1

Conflicting Counsels to Confuse the Age. A Documentary Study of Political Economy in Qing China, 1644–1840. By Helen Dunstan. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, No. 73. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1996. 363 pp. $50.00.

Conflicting Counsels to Confuse the Age. A Documentary Study of Political Economy in Qing China, 1644–1840. By Helen Dunstan. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, No. 73. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1996. 363 pp. $50.00. - Volume 56 Issue 3

Tao Qian and the Chinese Poetic Tradition: The Quest for Cultural Identity. By Charles Yim-Tze Kwong. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, no. 66. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1994. x, 281 pp. $40.00 (cloth); $20.00 (paper).

Tao Qian and the Chinese Poetic Tradition: The Quest for Cultural Identity. By Charles Yim-Tze Kwong. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, no. 66. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1994. x, 281 pp. $40.00 (cloth); $20.00 (paper).

Book reviews

General Russell Trood and Deborah McNamara, editors. The Australia‐Asian Survey 1994. Centre for the Study of Australia‐Asia Relations. Melbourne: Macmillan, 1994. xi, 340 pp. Abbreviations, tables, preface, index. A$79.95, hardcover. Northeast Asia Linda K. Benson. The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang 1944–1949. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1990. xvii, 265 pp. Preface, abbreviations, glossary, maps, bibliography, index. US$60.00, hardcover. Ole Bruun. Business and Bureaucracy in a Chinese City: An Ethnography of Private Business Households in Contemporary China. China Research Monograph No. 43, Center for Chinese Studies. Berkeley: University of California Institute of East Asian Studies, 1993. xii, 273 pp. Acknowledgments, contents, maps, index. US$20.00, paper. Colin MacKerras, editor. Eastern Asia: An Introductory History. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1992. 639 pp. Tables, maps, illustrations, index. A$39.95, paper. Robin Porter. Industrial Reformers in Republican China. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993. xviii, 276 pp. Preface, appendices, notes, glossary, bibliography, index. US$55.00, paper. Jonathan Unger, editor. Using the Past to Serve the Present: Historiography and Politics in Contemporary China. Australian National University Contemporary China Papers. Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1993. ix, 292 pp. Acknowledgments, contributors, introduction, index. US$19.95, paper. Alan M. Wachman. Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization. Armonk, NY, and London, England: M.E. Sharpe, 1994. xvi, 294 pp. Preface, map, appendices, selected bibliography, index. US$55.00, hardcover; US$19.95, paperback. Zhu Xiaoyang and Chen Peihua (Anita Chan). Xiangzheng yu Anliu (Symbols and Undercurrents). Taipei: Dao He Publishers, 1994. 347 pp. Foreword, notes, bibliography. NT$330, paper. South Asia Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya. The Making of Early Medieval India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994. xii, 270 pp. Preface, acknowledgments, end‐maps, maps, tables, bibliography, index. Rs.350.00, hardcover. Ronald Inden. Imagining India. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. 298 pp. Bibliography, index. US$39.95, paper. Geoffrey Samuel, Hamish Gregor and Elisabeth Stutchbury, editors. Tantra and Popular Religion in Tibet. New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, 1994. xiii, 205 pp. Contents, introduction, notes on contributors. Rs.300, hardcover. Southeast Asia Desmond Ball. Signals Intelligence in the Post‐Cold War Era. Developments in the Asia‐Pacific Region. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993. xiv, 144 pp. Introduction, tables, figures, appendix, notes, bibliography. US$25.00, paper; US$49.00, hardcover. Peter Boomgard, editor. The Changing Economy of Indonesia. Volume 13: Nico Dros, Wages 1820–1940, and Volume 14: Frans van Baardewijk, The Cultivation System, Java 1834–1880. Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute, 1992 and 1993. npg. David Bourchier and John Legge, editors. Democracy in Indonesia: 1950s and 1990s. Monash Papers on Southeast Asia No. 31. Clayton: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1994. xviii, 324 pp. Contributors, glossary, preface, index. A$24.95, paper. Bruce C. Campbell and Bu V.E. Wilson. The Politics of Exclusion: Indonesian Fishing in the Australian Fishing Zone. Indian Ocean Centre for Peace Studies Monograph No. 5. Perth: Curtin University of Technology, 1993. iv, 221 pp. Preface, abbreviations, maps, illustrations, graphs, appendices, bibliography, index. npg, paper. Geoffrey C. Gunn. A Critical View of Western Journalism and Scholarship on East Timor. Manila and Sydney: Journal of Contemporary Asia Publishers, 1994. 272 pp. Contents, preface, acknowledgments, bibliography, index. A$25.00, paper. Marie Alexandrine Martin. Cambodia: A Shattered Society. Translated by Mark W. McLeod. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. xxi, 398 pp. Preface, maps, appendixes, notes, index. US$40.00, hardcover. Alastair Morrison. Fair Land Sarawak: Some Recollections of an Expatriate Official. Studies on Southeast Asia No. 13. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1993. xiv, 182 pp. Illustrations, map, bibliography. US$16.00, paper. Rudolf Mrazek. Sjahrir: Politics and Exile in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1994. x, 526 pp. Preface, illustrations, bibliography, index. US$20.00, paper. Mayoury and Pheuiphanh Ngaosyvathn. Kith and Kin Politics: The Relationship Between Laos and Thailand. Manila: Journal of Contemporary Asia Publishers, 1994. 137 pp. US$10.00, paper. Mayoury Ngaosyvathn. Lao Women: Yesterday and Today. Vientiane: State Publishing Enterprise, 1993. Bilingual edition. x, 123 pp in Lao; x, 220 pp in English. US$10.00, paper. Adam Schwarz. A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia in the 1990s. St. Leonards, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1994. 370 pp. Bibliography, index. A$24.95, paper. J.L. Taylor. Forest Monks and the Nation State: An Anthropological and Historical Study in Northeastern Thailand. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993. xii, 377 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, index. US$41.50, hardcover. Vu Tu Lap and Christian Taillard. An Atlas of Vietnam. Collection Dynam‐iques du Territoire Series No. 13. Paris: RECLUS—La Documentation Française, 1994. 422 pp, 308 maps. FF320 (∼A$80.00), paper.

Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650–1850. By Pierre-Etienne Will and R. Bin Wong, with James Lee. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, volume 60. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1991. Pp. xxiv, 607. $40.00 cloth; $20.00 paper.

Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650–1850. By Pierre-Etienne Will and R. Bin Wong, with James Lee. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, volume 60. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1991. Pp. xxiv, 607. 20.00 paper. - Volume 55 Issue 1