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Qing Dynasty up to 1840 (Chinese Studies)

Feb 28th, 2017
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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. The territory of the Qing dynasty was in 1840 still at its maximum, roughly 25 percent larger than the present Chinese territory and more than double the size of the previous Ming dynasty. The history of the Qing dynasty is about this expansion and how Han Chinese tradition and institutions interacted with a leadership dominated by ethnic or organizational minorities, the Manchus and other bannermen. It was a time of change in society and government that belies the still heard claim that it was an immobile empire both internally and in a world context. This article focuses mainly on government and political history; it touches on social and cultural history, but these are dealt with more extensively in other articles in the Oxford Bibliographies in Chinese Studies. The population probably doubled in the period, and many people may have experienced rising or at least adequate living standards. There were few technological breakthroughs in production, but rational application and expansion of existing methods to more land in combination with other economic measures secured a rise in production, at least until around 1800, aided by a government apparatus with qualifications and flexibility to solve problems that arose. The ethnic or organizational complexity of government administration may have helped to create a strong administration, but state finances were never strong enough to evade corruption and its threats to society. Foreigners arrived as before, Qing subjects went abroad, and the integration of China in the world and the world economy before the European powers started to intrude on Qing territory, both on the coast and the continental borders, is now accepted by most historians although it is always possible to find rhetoric, rules, and actions that, seen in isolation, may support the impression of an isolating empire.
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  5. General Overviews
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  7. Peterson 2002 presents the best overview of the period from around 1600 to the late 18th century, supplemented with topical chapters, and is a relatively recent addition to the Cambridge History series. Fairbank 1978 is somewhat outdated but still useful for some topics, although the emphasis is clearly on the following period. Spence 2013 and Hsü 2000 are standard textbooks for the period from around 1600 to the present, and both have good sections on the period. Rowe 2009 is a good condensation of recent scholarship on the period, and Wang, et al. 1991–1993 is the most comprehensive modern Chinese overview.
  8.  
  9. Fairbank, John K. ed. The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 10, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911: Part 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
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  11. Chapters 1 to 4 are a good introduction to Qing history in early 19th century. Particularly noteworthy is Joseph Fletcher’s contribution. The time is approaching to have a fresh edition with the latest scholarship to this monumental work.
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  13. Hsü, Immanuel C. Y. The Rise of Modern China. 6th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
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  15. The best introduction to more traditional scholarship on the period, but the author’s strength is clearly after 1840. Good for foreign relations. Originally published in 1970. Substantially reedited with the third edition in 1983. Chapters 1 to 8 deal with the period with no major changes since that edition.
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  17. Peterson, Willard J., ed. Cambridge History of China. Vol. 9, The Ch’ing Dynasty, to 1800: Part 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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  19. Like other volumes of the Cambridge History, it has chronological chapters, starting with the period before 1644 and each of the three emperors to the end of the 18th century. Followed by topical chapters on the conquest elite, literati, women, social conditions, and economy. Valuable as a more recent volume but, unfortunately, still with the Wade-Giles transcription.
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  21. Rowe, William T. China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2009.
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  23. A succinct exposition of recent research by a leading scholar among the “revisionists” of Qing historians. An excellent supplement to other more traditional overviews, helping us to place Qing history on a sounder basis as that of a state, or empire, in recent history.
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  25. Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. 3d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2013.
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  27. Good as a first introduction to the field and a great pleasure to read. Political and economic history with a great deal of social history often focused on individuals. Chapters 2 to 6 on the period. First edition 1990. Third edition has been revised to incorporate recent scholarship, including commerce and related topics. A volume with sources has been published to accompany its use as a textbook.
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  29. Wang Rongsheng 王戎笙, Li Xun 李洵, Guo Songyi 郭松义, et al., eds. Qingdai quanshi (清代全史). 10 vols. Shenyang, China: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1991–1993.
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  31. Resulting from a major national research project, this work shows the state of Qing history research in the People’s Republic of China, mostly based on published sources. No reference to archival material has been found. Vols. 1 to 6 cover the period, basically chronologically but with chapters on socioeconomic, cultural, and other topics. Each volume has one or two editors.
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  33. Reference Works
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  35. Reference works have been flourishing in Chinese studies for many years, many in Chinese but also some in foreign languages. The following subsections on Institutions and Biographical Resources cast light on some questions; others require more specialized tools, and it is important always to remember to use the Internet, either simple search engines or specific databases.
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  37. Institutions
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  39. Much knowledge on Qing institutions is scattered in many publications of recent years, and, hopefully, they will be consolidated before long. In the meantime, the manuals from the Qing dynasty, written primarily for the foreign community, are handy. Try Mayers 1897, but Brunnert and Hagelstrom 1912 is more readily available. The English translation of administrative terms Sun 1961 is still useful, but for a more up-to-date handbook of Qing administration, Zhu and Zhang 2011 is recommended.
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  41. Brunnert, H. S., and V. V. Hagelstrom. Present-Day Political Organization of China. Translated by A. Beltchenko and E. E. Moran. Shanghai, China: Kelly & Walsh, 1912.
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  43. The standard reference to Qing government organization with the changes after 1900 but also useful for earlier periods. Reprinted 2007 by RoutledgeCurzon. Available online.
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  45. Mayers, William Frederick. The Chinese Government: A Manual of Chinese Titles, Categorically Arranged and Explained, with an Appendix. 3d ed. Revised by G. M. H. Playfair. Shanghai, China: Kelly & Walsh, 1897.
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  47. Based on the Collected Statutes of the Qing Dynasty (Da Qing huidian), this book was primarily intended for the foreign community on the China coast and is a convenient way to find offices and translations before the administrative reforms of the early 20th century. First published in 1877.
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  49. Sun, E-tu Zen. Ch’ing Administrative Terms: A Translation of Terminology of the Six Boards with Explanatory Notes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961.
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  51. Translation of the Liubu chengyu 清代六部成語from the early Qianlong period; a convenient handbook for officials and clerks. Good English translations to a number of expressions but an update that includes more terms and new translations in later research would be welcome. There is a Chinese dictionary to the Liubu Chengyu: Li Pengnian李鹏年, et al., eds. Qingdai liubu chengyu cidian (清代六部成语词典) (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1990).
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  53. Zhu Jinfu 朱金甫, and Zhang Shucai 张书才, eds. Qingdai dianzhang zhidu cidian (清代典章制度辞典). Dictionary of Administrative Institutions of the Qing Period. Beijing: Renmin daxue chubanshe, 2011.
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  55. The most up-to-date dictionary of virtually all aspects of Qing administrative institutions.
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  57. Biographical Resources
  58.  
  59. Goodrich, et al. 1976 and Hummel 1943–1944 are both carefully researched collections of biographies and still worth consulting although it is always a good idea to check more recent research. Ho 1998 has taken up the challenge to provide biographies of women, many of them in this period. Jiang 2005 and Qingshi 1984–2001 are good examples of careful Chinese research, but the Internet is often a good way to start and may often provide adequate information to be checked against more authoritative sources.
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  61. Goodrich, Luther Carrington, and Fang Chaoying. Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368–1644. 2 vols. Ming Biographical Project of the Association for Asian Studies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976.
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  63. The standard reference on the previous period but may include individuals who were still active under the Qing.
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  65. Ho, Clara Wing-chung, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women. Vol. 1, The Qing Period, 1644–1911. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998.
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  67. Biographies of about 200 women from the whole Qing period, perhaps one-half before 1840. With a wide range of positions in society but mostly where they had a chance to become known, such as the court and the arts. With bibliographical references.
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  69. Hummel, Arthur W., ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period. 2 vols. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1943–1944.
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  71. Still a good way to start a study of the period in a biographical form and to solve many problems about persons and their position in Qing society. Around 800 biographies but many more in the index, when they are mentioned in the biographies of others. Attention to more recent scholarship is recommended with a work of this age. Several reprints and available online.
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  73. Jiang Qingbo 江庆柏. Qingdai renwu shengzu nianbiao (清代人物生卒年表). Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2005.
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  75. Around 25,000 persons from the Qing period from politics, economics, military, science and technology, medicine, education, literature, and art. Where possible it gives dates of birth and death.
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  77. Qingshi bianweihui 清史编委会, ed. Qingdai renwu zhuangao (清代人物传稿). 20 vols. Shenyang-Beijing: Liaoning renmin chubanshe-Zhonghua shuju, 1984–2001.
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  79. Part of the project to publish a history of the Qing period (see Wang, et al. 1991–1993, cited under General Overviews). Around 1,300 biographies of people with an impact on the history of the period, including some foreigners. A list of indexed people and authors is available online.
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  81. Guides to Sources and Scholarship
  82.  
  83. Wilkinson 2013 has many suggestions and details that most scholars will find useful in any field of Chinese history and also for the early Qing dynasty. A Chinese guide is Feng 2004, and Iwai, et al. 2006 is a convenient survey of more recent Japanese scholarship. Ho 2012 leads to women’s studies, and Struve 1998 is an exemplary research guide for anyone working on the early Qing period related to the Late Ming. Skinner 1973 is useful for its references to earlier material but needs updating. Some updating may be found in Bibliography of Asian Studies and on the home page of the Society for Qing Studies. Local gazetteers difangzhi 地方志 is a valuable source for local history, and Zhuang, et al. 1985 and Jin and Hu 2000, are convenient catalogues for a first impression.
  84.  
  85. Bibliography of Asian Studies. 1941–.
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  87. The online version has material from 1971, particularly articles in journals and collected volumes.
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  89. Feng Erkang. 冯儿康. Qingshi shiliaoxue (清史史料学) Studies of Qing Dynasty Historical Sources. Shenyang, China: Shenyang chubanshe, 2004.
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  91. Valuable handbook for different types of historical material and institutions by one of the leading Qing historians, a self-proclaimed member of the “school of historical material” 史料派. Chapters on different types of material, including archives, and appendices on the basic books and published registers for archives, but only to 1991. No index beyond that time.
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  93. Ho, Clara Wing-chung, ed. Overt and Covert Treasures: Essays on the Sources for Chinese Women’s History. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2012.
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  95. Arranged in chapters usually around a certain type of text with many of relevance to the period. Includes critical assessment of recent scholarship and bibliographies and a select bibliography on methodologies of Chinese women’s’ history.
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  97. Iwai Shigeki 岩井茂樹, Katō Naohito 加藤直人, and Tanii Toshihito 谷井俊仁. “Shindai” (清代). In Chūgoku rekishi kenkyū nyūmon (中国歴史研究入門). Edited by Tonami Mamoru 礪波護, Kishimoto Mio 岸本美緒, and Sugiyama Masaaki 杉山正明, 214–239, 429–440. Nagoya, Japan: Nagoya daigaku shuppankai, 2006.
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  99. Gives a short introduction to predominantly Japanese scholarship on the Qing dynasty with reference works and sources.
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  101. Jin Enhui 金恩辉, and Hu Shuzhao 胡述兆, eds. Zhongguo difangzhi zongmu tiyao (中国地方志总目提要). Beijing: Guoji guanggao chubanshe, 2000.
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  103. An annotated bibliography of 8,577 gazetteers with a description of the contents. Useful introduction for anyone wishing to start to work on local affairs and also for other purposes.
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  105. Skinner, G. William, ed. Modern Chinese Society: An Analytical Bibliography (1644–1971). 3 vols. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1973.
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  107. A major undertaking to catalogue publications on Chinese society since 1644 in a number of Western languages and with separate volumes on Chinese and Japanese titles.
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  109. Society for Qing Studies.
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  111. The society keeps a home page with sections for “Research Resources,” including “Primary Sources for Qing History” and “Japanese Resources.”
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  113. Struve, Lynn. The Ming-Qing Conflict, 1619–1683: A Historiography and Source Guide. Association of Asian Studies Monograph. Ann Arbor, MI: Association of Asian Studies, 1998.
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  115. Part 1 is the historiography of predominantly Chinese writings from the 17th century up to the present. 2 is the guide to the sources in East Asian and European languages in the form of a bibliography with copious notes to give the best help to anyone who might venture into this field. An updated version is available on IUScholarWorks Repository.
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  117. Wilkinson, Endymion, ed. Chinese History: A New Manual. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph 84. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013.
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  119. A guide to many aspects of Chinese history, society, and culture from the earliest time to the present. Greatly expanded from earlier versions (1973, 1998, 2000) and updated to include references to the latest digital resources. Many sections with information useful for the period. Chapter 66 deals with the sources for the Qing dynasty.
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  121. Zhuang Weifeng 壮威风, Zhu Shijia 朱士嘉, and Feng Baolin 冯宝琳, eds. Zhongguo difangzhi lianhe mulu (中国地方志联合目录). Zhongguo kexueyuan. Beijing tianwentai. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985.
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  123. The most comprehensive catalogue of extant gazetteers fangzhi. They were compiled in administrative units at certain intervals, often directed by prominent locals assisted by professional compilers, and used, among others, by arriving officials as a quick introduction. There is undoubtedly a bias in the compilation, but with this in mind they are a rich source for the history of many aspects of local society.
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  125. Guides to Archives
  126.  
  127. Most important are the collections in the Number One Historical Archives in Beijing and the National Palace Museum and the Academia Sinica, both in Taipei. Access is now mostly to digitized documents and books, normally to be used in the archives, but some are made available for use in other institutions. Beatrice S. Bartlett was the pioneer in using and describing these archives, although others have shared their experience, particularly in the Ch’ing-shih wen-t’i around 1980. Bartlett 1975 introduces the holdings in the National Palace Museum. Bartlett 2007 is a good description of the history of the conditions of archives in the People’s Republic, and Bartlett 2011 is a more up-to-date description. Informal guides to the archives based on recent experiences may appear from time to time on the Internet. Archives outside China have documents on relations with China. Of particular interest for this period are the holdings of the Vatican (Pelliot 1995), and the Jesuit archives (Chan 2002).
  128.  
  129. Bartlett, Beatrice S. “Ch’ing Documents in the National Palace Museum Archives. Document Registers. Part 1: The Sui-shou teng-chi.” National Palace Museum Bulletin 10.4 (1975): 1–17.
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  131. The first part of the description of Qing document holdings in the National Palace Museum Archives with detailed description of the contents of the Suishou dengji 随手登记, a register dating from 1794. Part 2 does not seem to have appeared, but the author has other articles on the archives from the same period.
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  133. Bartlett, Beatrice S. “A World-Class Archival Achievement: The People’s Republic of China Archivists’ Success in Opening the Ming-Qing Central-Government Archives, 1949–1998.” Archival Science 7.4 (2007): 369–390.
  134. DOI: 10.1007/s10502-008-9063-0Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  135. A stimulating account how archives developed in the People’s Republic and how they started to be used by Chinese historians in the 1950s and by foreigners from the 1980s on. With brief descriptions of materials and publications.
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  137. Bartlett, Beatrice S. “Research Note: The Newly Digitized Archives Program at China’s Number One Historical Archives, Beijing.” Late Imperial China 32.1 (2011): 1–12.
  138. DOI: 10.1353/late.2011.0002Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  139. A good guide to the archives with lists of digitized and microfilmed holdings, a description of working conditions, and experiences with searches in the digitized holdings.
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  141. Chan, Albert. Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome: A Descriptive Catalogue: Japonica Sinica I–IV. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2002.
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  143. Descriptive catalogue of around 500 Chinese titles holdings in the archives. In addition there is a rich collection of titles in other languages not with similar description.
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  145. Pelliot, Paul. Inventaire sommaire des manuscripts et imprimés chinois de la Bibliothèque Vaticane. A Posthumous Work by Paul Pelliot. Revised and edited by Takata Tokio高田時雄. Italian School of East Asian Studies Reference Series 1. Kyoto, Japan; Instituto Italiano di Cultura Scuola di Studi sull’Asia Orientale, 1995.
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  147. The collection is important for the books published in China by the European missionaries and their Chinese followers, whereas the Chinese books in general seem to be standard editions easily found in other libraries, except, as the editor notes, editions with popular notes that do not belong to the canon of classical scholarship.
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  149. Documentary Sources and Official Histories
  150.  
  151. Sources in various forms were published from the beginning of the Qing period. Qing shilu 1985–1987 was, and is, the standard source for the central government if archives are not available, supplemented by other sources such as Da Qing wuchao huidian 2006. He and Wei 1992 is a collection of important documents and writings, collected in the 1820s. Note that a number of these collections are now available on the Internet, most importantly in searchable databases. Wilkinson 2013 (cited under Guides to Sources and Scholarship, p. 597) is a convenient introduction to these databases and mentions them whenever applicable. The most important secondary source for Chinese history has been the dynastic histories compiled by the following dynasty. Zhao, et al. 1976–1977 was written for this purpose for the Qing dynasty but has not been accepted. Plans for the compilation of a new Qing history are introduced in Wang 2010. Li, et al. 1998–2000 is a very useful chronological compilation of sources, emanating from the work on a Qing history in the Institute of Qing History at the Renmin/Peoples’ University.
  152.  
  153. Da Qing wuchao huidian 大清五朝會典. 22 vols. Beijing: Xianzhuang shuju, 2006.
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  155. The collected statutes huidian of the Qing dynasty in five editions, printed in 1690, 1734, 1768, 1823, and 1908. Each edition had changes in administrative procedures in the form of substatutes and precedents (zeli 则例/shili 事例) and reflects changes over time in these procedures. Different editions and reproductions, with titles like Da Qing huidian 大清會典, Qing huidian 清會典, and Qing huidian shili 清會典事例.
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  157. He Changling (賀長), and Wei Yuan (魏源). Qing jingshi wenbian (清經世文編). 3 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1992.
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  159. First published in 1827 as Huangchao jingshi wenbian (皇朝經世文編) with over 2,200 memorials and essays in the Statecraft tradition going back to the start of the dynasty. Divided into sixty-five topics, many on economic matters but also military and many other subjects. The 1992 edition has an author index. Searchable on Academia Sinica (Scripta Sinica) 漢籍電子文獻.
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  161. Li Wenhai 李文海, Shi Song 史松, Lin Tiejun 林铁钧, and Huang Xingtao 黄兴涛, eds. Qingshi biannian (清史编年) 11 vols. Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue, 1998–2000.
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  163. Organized chronologically by days, but not every day, it has quotations from a variety of sources, often the Shilu, on politics, economics, society, culture, military, and foreign relations. Vols. 1 to 8 cover the period to 1850.
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  165. Qing shilu (清實錄). 60 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985–1987.
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  167. English title: Veritable Records of the Qing Dynasty. Photolithographic edition Dai Shin rekichō jitsuroku 大清歷朝實錄 in Mukden/Shenyang (1937). Taiwan edition, 1963–1964. Digitized version in Number One Archive in Beijing. Records of the daily activities of the emperors. The entries may have useful summaries of documents relating to other than court affairs. A good place to start a search for specific documents in other sources. Volumes have been published with excerpts for certain topics and regions.
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  169. Wang, Q. Edward. “Qingshi (Qing History): Why a New Dynastic History? (Editor’s Introduction).” Chinese Studies in History 43.2 (2010): 3–5.
  170. DOI: 10.2753/CSH0009-4633430200Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  171. Introduction to a translation of nine articles by Chinese historians involved in the work on a new Qing history. On the origin of the work and possible changes in the format of the history and other considerations.
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  173. Zhao Erxun 趙爾巽, Mou Quansun 缪荃孙, and Ke Shaomin 柯劭忞, eds. Qingshi gao (清史稿). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1976–1977.
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  175. Published in 1928 as the dynastic history but not recognized officially. A useful reference on political and economic matters. There is a separately published index of names to the edition mentioned here, and several editions have indices of persons and so on. Available online.
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  177. Journals
  178.  
  179. A number of journals regularly carry articles on the period. Late Imperial China is the obvious choice, but important articles are often found in more general journals like Journal of Asian Studies and Modern Asian Studies. Ming Studies might occasionally have an article, and the same is true for Chinese and Japanese historical journals where the most obvious is Qingshi yanjiu. Articles are also found in other journals and in other European languages.
  180.  
  181. Journal of Asian Studies.
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  183. Covers East Asia and South Asia. Published quarterly with a handful of articles in all fields so it will occasionally have relevant articles. Look also for the book reviews, usually short but informative and competent.
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  185. Late Imperial China.
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  187. Dedicated to the study of the Qing period, it started in 1965 as Ch’ing shih wen-t’i. The present name was adopted in 1985, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for Qing Studies. The electronic version dates back to 1965 with lacunae in the early volumes.
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  189. Ming Studies.
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  191. Started in 1975 and now published by the Society for Ming Studies. Includes articles on various topics from the Late Ming and Early Qing and useful to understand events and developments spanning the dynastic change.
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  193. Modern Asian Studies.
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  195. Covers East Asia and South Asia, and “modern” includes the early Qing period.
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  197. Qingshi yanjiu (清史研究).
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  199. The leading journal on Qing history in China, published by the Institute of Qing History under Renmin/People’s University, the leading institution for Qing history research in China.
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  201. Historiographical Studies
  202.  
  203. The history of the Qing dynasty has traditionally been the history of a Chinese dynasty, to deserve a dynastic history after its demise. In this vein the focus has been, as for other dynasties with rulers of foreign origin, on how these strangers adapted to Han Chinese ways of life and administration. Ho 1967 has been singled out as a hallmark of this “sinification’ view. Rawski 1996 points to new developments and summarizes the research that started around twenty years before, prompted by the opening of the archives first in Taiwan and later in the People’s Republic. Ho 1998 replies to Rawski, whose modified thinking may be seen in Rawski 2004. The development in what has been called New Qing history is summarized in Waley-Cohen 2004, and Elliott 2001 is an instructive introduction to the work on Manchu sources with a case study on the memorial system. Examples of how Japanese scholarship deals with the new research situation are in Kishimoto 2005.
  204.  
  205. Elliott, Mark. “The Manchu-Language Archives of the Qing Dynasty and the Origins of the Palace Memorial System.” Late Imperial China 22.1 (2001): 1–70.
  206. DOI: 10.1353/late.2001.0002Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  207. A fine example of “New Qing history” and the importance of the Manchu archives in Beijing, Shenyang, and Taipei by one of the historians best trained in their use and with descriptions of the holdings. Important to understand the origins of the palace memorial system.
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  209. Ho, Ping-ti. “The Significance of the Ch’ing Period in Chinese History.” Journal of Asian Studies 26.2 (1967): 189–195.
  210. DOI: 10.2307/2051924Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  211. A paper prepared for a panel on Qing history touching on six points: territory, population, conquest dynasty and sinicization, traditional institutions and interregional integration, material civilization and art, and the decline of the dynasty.
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  213. Ho, Ping-Ti. “In Defense of Sinicization: A Rebuttal of Evelyn Rawski’s ‘Reenvisioning the Qing.’” Journal of Asian Studies 57.1 (1998): 123–155.
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  215. The reply to Rawski 1996 but clearly with a focus on the author’s broader interest in Chinese civilization and why it persisted for so long. Of less interest for the study of the period, and Rawski does not seem to have replied directly.
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  217. Kishimoto, Mio, ed. Ming-Ch’ing History Seen from East Asia. Acta Asiatica: Bulletin of the Institute of Eastern Culture 88 (2005).
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  219. Five articles by different authors collected to show the trends in Japanese research from Late Ming and into the Qing period. On frontier society, the Manchu khanate, the Qianlong emperor, and Tibetan Buddhism, regionalism in the circulation of money, and the editor’s overview of Japanese research on the Qing with influences from world history and the East Asian world in a Japanese setting. A good introduction to Japanese scholarship.
  220. Find this resource:
  221. Rawski, Evelyn. “Presidential Address: Reenvisioning the Qing: The Significance of the Qing Period in Chinese History.” Journal of Asian Studies 55.4 (1996): 829–850.
  222. DOI: 10.2307/2646525Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  223. A presentation of the recent developments in Qing history studies seen in relation to the remarks of Ho Ping-ti in 1967 on sinicization, and stressing that the Qing was more than a Chinese dynasty; it was an East and Central Asian empire.
  224. Find this resource:
  225. Rawski, Evelyn S. “The Qing Formation and the Early Modern Period.” In The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time. Edited by Lynn A. Struve, 207–241. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004.
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  227. Argues that the Qing had many of the characteristics of the early-modern paradigm, for example in its fiscal policies and the interaction with the private economy, in administrative centralization, and by the application of techniques from various traditions, the Central Asian, the Han Chinese, and the European.
  228. Find this resource:
  229. Waley-Cohen, Joanna. “The New Qing History.” Radical History Review 88 (2004): 193–206.
  230. DOI: 10.1215/01636545-2004-88-193Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  231. The standard introduction to recent works on Qing history in the form of a review article on nine titles from 1997 to 2001 with a succinct presentation of different aspects of a “new” understanding of Qing history.
  232. Find this resource:
  233. Formation of the Qing State
  234.  
  235. The Qing dynasty started in 1636, but the formation of its political and military organization started back in the late 16th century. After the end of the short-lived Shun dynasty under Li Zicheng—normally not counted in the succession of Chinese dynasties—and the subsequent Qing conquest of the capital in 1644, control over the territory of the Ming dynasty was finally achieved in the 1680s, and, with exceptions, the population of China came to accept the dominance of a regime based on a minority ethnic group with its roots in the Northeast. Wakeman 1985 tells the story of the conquest and the consolidation of Qing power, and Di Cosmo 2009 puts it even more explicitly into a world history context, while Struve 1988 follows the fate of the Ming dynasty and the attempts to continue its rule in South China.
  236.  
  237. Di Cosmo, Nicola. “The Manchu Conquest in World-Historical Perspective: A Note on Trade and Silver.” Journal of Central Eurasian Studies 1 (2009): 43–60.
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  239. A leading specialist on early Manchu history emphasizes the need to study all constituent elements in a historical event, like the Manchu conquest of China, in a world-historical perspective. Focus on the elements in the formation of the Manchu state and the importance of trade and how it was put to use for the state.
  240. Find this resource:
  241. Struve, Lynn A. “The Southern Ming, 1644–1662.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 7, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644: Part 1. Edited by Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett, 641–725. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
  242. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521243322Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  243. A survey of the political and military situation and the attempts to have a descendent of the Ming ruling family on the throne of at least parts of China and of the resistance to the Manchus. By a leading specialist on the Southern Ming.
  244. Find this resource:
  245. Wakeman, Frederic, Jr. The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
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  247. A magisterial work starting in the Northeast during the Ming Dynasty and following the formation of the Manchu state and the Qing dynasty, with developments in the economy and climate and details of the military campaigns but also the intellectual life in the transition. Manchu sources not used. Mistakes found, so do not use details unchecked.
  248. Find this resource:
  249. Government
  250.  
  251. The interaction between the rulers and the population is an important issue in studies of government in China, including how the decisions were made around the emperor, how they were implemented, and how the bureaucrats and the people reacted to a rather centralized decision making that could not always be supported by the administrative skills and the necessary economic resources.
  252.  
  253. Emperors and Banners
  254.  
  255. The imperial institutions in the Qing dynasty were instrumental in the government of the empire and showed from the start a very conscious reworking of the Ming imperial institutions that had not been able to cope with the crises of the early decades of the 17th century. The Kangxi, the Yongzheng, and the Qianlong emperors occupied the throne for about 135 years. Biographical studies of emperors are now quite common in China (Feng 2004 and Dai 1992). Spence 1974 and Elliott 2009 are important examples in English. Rawski 1998 and Crossley 1999 show aspects of the daily lives of the emperors and how their personal or institutional authority was projected to various parts of society. Qing emperors spent much more time outside the palace than their Ming predecessors, on military campaigns or the annual hunt with the Mongols, and particularly the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, went on elaborate Southern Tours treated in Chang 2007. To serve the emperors both in the palace and out in society, the Qing set up the important Imperial Household Department Neiwufu 內務府, employing the bonded servants of the imperial family, rather than eunuchs, studied in Torbert 1977. Outside the court the banner organization provided both physical and administrative support to the emperor, studied excellently in Elliott 2001.
  256.  
  257. Chang, Michael G. A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007.
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  259. The Southern Tours of the Kangxi and, particularly, the Qianlong emperors were, among other things, projections of imperial power to the prosperous regions of the lower Yangzi region. They brought the emperor out of the palace, demonstrated the logistic talent of the Manchu and Mongol military officials, and could serve as a way to lessen tensions between a dynasty founded on the banner institution and the Han Chinese elite.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Crossley, Pamela Kyle. A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
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  263. The development of rulership as the territory expanded from the formation of the banner system and to its full extent under the Qianlong emperor. Important for its understanding of what happened to the Han Chinese who lived close to, or mixed with, the Manchus and how they entered the banners. Also how the emperors later adopted roles that would legitimate their power in the eyes of various groups when they came under Qing rule and the history created around them.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Dai Yi (戴逸). Qianlong di ji qi shidai (乾隆及其时代) Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1992.
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  267. An avowedly impressionistic study resulting from a lifelong study of the period by one the mentors of Qing history in China. Arranged topically after important events and with some biographies. Sources include the use of archives.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. Elliott, Mark C. The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
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  271. The banner system as a military and state institution and how it contributed to the Qing state and survived to the end of the dynasty, as a distinct group to live in their own way side by side with the Han Chinese. Important is the use of sources in Manchu and what the Manchus wrote about themselves in their own language.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Elliott, Mark C. Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009.
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  275. Biography of the Qianlong emperor in the Longman Library of World Biography series. Written for a more general audience but still important to get a glimpse into the life and work of one of the leading emperors; also a good supplement to the self-portrait of the Kangxi emperor.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Feng Erkang (冯尔康). Yongzheng zhuan. (雍正传). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2004.
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  279. A very thorough biography of the emperor and his time before and on the throne 1723–1735, based on a variety of sources in a separate list 引用书目. Conveniently arranged with topical chapters and with remains of traditional Marxist historical studies. The Postscript 后记 is dated 1984, and it was first published in 1985.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Rawski, Evelyn. The Last Emperors: A Social History of the Qing Imperial Institution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
  282. DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520212893.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  283. An exhaustive study of the Qing imperial institution from the founding around 1600. Focuses on material conditions, including the capitals and other buildings, on the construction of the Qing elite, and, in Part Three, on the rituals. Important to understand the role of the Manchu imperial institution from the early days.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Spence, Jonathan D. Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K’ang-hsi. New York: Knopf, 1974.
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  287. A fascinating example of the authors’ long-time endeavor to explore the thinking and emotions of individuals in China as far as possible in their own words. Cannot take the place of a biography but still worth exploring. Paperback edition: New York: Vintage, 1975.
  288. Find this resource:
  289. Torbert, Preston M. The Ch’ing Imperial Household Department: A Study of Its Organization and Principal Functions, 1662–1796. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.
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  291. The Imperial Household Department was in charge of the palace and the institutions and personnel connected to it, both inside and outside the palace, and including procurements of money and material predominantly in Southern China. Still the basic work on this institution.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Central Administration
  294.  
  295. The Qing took over the Ming central administration with no fundamental changes but with additions when the banner system and other experiences from more nomadic societies proved useful. The Lifanyuan, often translated as Court of Colonial Affairs, staffed with Manchus and Mongols, had authority over the conquered peoples of Central Asia. Chia 2012 is an instructive study of how this was done in practice. The traditional transmission of government documents was from the late 17th century supplemented and, eventually, at least for important correspondence, supplanted by the system of palace memorials studied in Wu 1970 (see also Elliott 2001, cited under Emperors and Banners). More or less informal offices to assist the emperor in processing of documents existed from the time of the Kangxi emperor, and the reworking of the central administration under the Yongzheng saw more such committees eventually to be consolidated into the Grand Council as the prime decision-making body until the end of the dynasty. Bartlett 1991 is a pathbreaking study to understand this institution, confirmed in Will 1994 with further suggestions and questions. A study of the clerks of the central administration is found in Kaske 2012.
  296.  
  297. Bartlett, Beatrice S. Monarchs & Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ch’ing China, 1723–1820. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
  298. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. The origin of the Grand Council, or Office for Military Affairs Junjichu 军机处, around 1730 was well known. By meticulous use of documents in archives in the People’s Republic and Taiwan. The author follows its genesis under the Yongzheng emperor and its subsequent consolidation and development as the supreme decision-making institution immediately below the emperor.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Chia, Ning. “Lifanyuan and the Management of Population Diversity in Early Qing (1636–1795).” Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Paper 139. Halle, Germany: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, 2012.
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  303. Introduction to the people and the social entities under control of the Lifanyuan理藩院by one of the leading students of that institution and summarizing her own scholarship.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Kaske, Elisabeth. “Metropolitan Clerks and Venality in Qing China: The Great 1830 Forgery Case.” T’oung-pao 98.1 (2012): 217–269.
  306. DOI: 10.1163/156853212X634626Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307. The Contribution Office Juannaju 捐纳局of the Ministry of Revenue Hubu 户部 was in charge of legitimately “selling” offices, degrees, and titles, an important state income. This study of a forgery case in 1830 focuses on the role of the metropolitan clerks and how they were controlled and provides insight into the social and professional mobility of the clerks.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Will, Pierre-Étienne. “Review: BARTLETT Beatrice S. 1991 Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ch’ing China 1723–1820 by Beatrice S. Bartlett.” Harvard Journal of Asian Studies 54.1 (1994): 313–337.
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  311. A stimulating review that raises a number of questions with suggestions for their answers that may, or may not, find their solutions in further studies in the archives. Definitely useful for understanding of Qing administration.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Wu, Silas. Communication and Imperial Control in China: The Evolution of the Palace Memorial System, 1693–1735. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.
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  315. A short and authoritative study of the central decision making in early Qing and the establishment from the middle of the Kangxi reign of a more direct communication between the emperor and higher officials. Includes translations of some documents. More recent studies add to our understanding of the system and its introduction, but this study is still useful.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Field Administration
  318.  
  319. Governors and governors-general (viceroys), inherited from the Ming dynasty, were the primary field administrators of the Qing, to a certain extent supplemented by the banner organization. Guy 2010 is a persuasive study of the evolution of provincial administration, increasingly important in cooperation with the central government. Will 1990 is a case study of how the field administration was able to cope with famines in the mid-18th century, and in the same vein is Will and Wong 1991 on the granary system as the basis for the work of the field administrators and how it gradually changed toward the end of the period.
  320.  
  321. Guy, R. Kent. Qing Governors and Their Provinces: The Evolution of Territorial Administration in China, 1644–1796. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010.
  322. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  323. Provinces were for the emperors a flexible instrument to secure control over the realm by appointment of governors more based on their talents than on their education. They became powerful local officials, and, eventually, their appointment became more regular as leaders of a provincial bureaucracy and adapting to changing circumstances over time and space.
  324. Find this resource:
  325. Will, Pierre-Etienne. Bureaucracy and Famine in Eighteenth-Century China. Translated by Elborg Forster. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990.
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  327. Translated from the French Bureaucratie et famine en Chine au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Mouton, 1980). One of the basic studies to show that the government and its field administration in the mid-18 century could cope adequately with the problems of famine and was not, as often assumed, already on the way to its anticipated demise. The focus is on North China.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Will, Pierre-Étienne, and R. Bin Wong. Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650–1850. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1991.
  330. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  331. Granaries to solve local and temporary problems in food supply have a long tradition in Chinese society, under both official and private management. The authors present the development of the granaries and the related institutional development, including important cooperation with market forces, and how the granary system functioned relatively well with regional variations and also seen in a world context.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Local Administration
  334.  
  335. Local administration was centered on the approximately 1,500 district magistrates, of various designations, and their personnel in the local yamens. Ch’u 1962 is still the most comprehensive study of this institution but may be supplemented by more recent studies of the local administration, both for the Ming and later in the Qing dynasty. Huang 1984 is a useful translation of a well-known manual for local magistrates with many details about life and death in a district in southern Shandong province in the late 17th century. Snyder-Reinke 2009 studies the interface between the magistrate and the local population, and Yamamoto 1999 studies the involvement of the elite in solving practical problems in local administration.
  336.  
  337. Ch’u, T’ung-tsu. Local Government in China under the Ch’ing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962.
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  339. Local government in the Qing pivoted, as in previous periods, on the person of the magistrate. This is a comprehensive study of the selection, promotion, and functioning of the magistrate, the workings of his office and its personnel, and his cooperation with and dependence on the local elite. Could be updated in view of later research but still useful.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Huang, Liu-hung 黄六鸿. A Complete Book Concerning Happiness and Benevolence. Fu-hui ch’üan-shu 福惠全书. A Manual for Local Magistrates in Seventeenth-Century China. Translated and edited by Djang Chu (Zhang Chu 章楚). Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1984.
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  343. A good translation of one of the widely used manuals for local magistrates. Principles for abridging the first translation are on pages xii–xiii. The story about Woman Wang, used in Jonathan D. Spence (The Death of Woman Wang. New York: Viking, 1978) are on pages 343–351. The original version in Chinese was first printed in 1694.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Snyder-Reinke, Jeffrey. Dry Spells: State Rainmaking and Local Governance in Late Imperial China. Harvard East Asian Monographs 311. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
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  347. At the interface between the local magistrate and population, religious and semireligious activities such as rainmaking were important. Tracing the custom back in history, the book presents a variety of sources and indicates that personal preferences of the official could influence the rituals. Includes translations of texts from around 1800.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Yamamoto, Eishi. “Tax Farming by the Gentry: Reorganization of the Tax Collection System in the Early Qing.” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 57 (1999): 61–89.
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  351. The Qing government originally attempted to continue the subbureaucratic systems of the Ming. It did not work, and the problem quickly arose whether tax should be paid directly by the taxpayer or through intermediaries. The author brings together years of research set in the broader context of the Japanese research.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Popular Unrest and Rebellions
  354.  
  355. Officials in contact with the people were obliged to monitor popular sentiments to avoid unrest, but it did occur, sometimes in violent or bizarre forms. Hung 2011 studies the input from the people and how it was dealt with, and Kuhn 1990 looks at the interaction of the emperor and the bureaucracy in response to potential threatening events among the people. Naquin 1981 studies a smaller uprising in Shandong in the late 18th century, at a time when rebellions started to become more common.
  356.  
  357. Hung, Ho-fung. Protest with Chinese characteristics, Demonstrations, Riots, and Petitions in the Mid-Qing Dynasty. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.
  358. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  359. Protests recorded in the Veritable Records (shilu) from 1740 to 1840 are used to study how protests changed with changes in state capacity, economic circumstances, and ideological rhetoric. Shows, not surprisingly, that there are other traditions than the European that later Chinese protests could draw upon.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Kuhn, Philip A. Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.
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  363. How a tale of sorcery, magic, imperial hair dress orders, and a scare among the people in Zhejiang province in 1768 became a concern for the emperor and his bureaucrats and how they responded to a rather bizarre but also disquieting input from society. The author takes the opportunity to look into various aspects of Qing society.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Naquin, Susan. Shantung Rebellion: The Wang Lun Uprising of 1774. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981.
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  367. Among the first notable rebellions in the Chinese heartland of the Qing Empire, this millenarian-inspired uprising was initially a threat to the local society but was no match for a more concerted employment of Qing forces. Based on rebel depositions, it is equally important as a case study of the White Lotus sect in a society that was not ready to challenge the authorities on a large scale.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Legal System
  370.  
  371. Research on the Chinese legal system has made considerable progress over the past few decades, based on more sources and more sophisticated analysis. Jones 1994 is a good translation of the Qing Code, but earlier translations may still be useful. It is supplemented by examples of law cases in Bodde and Morris 1967. Waley-Cohen 1991 studies changes in punishments with the expansion of the territory and Heuschert 1998 the use of law in the administration of the Mongols. The function and training of law specialists, hired by officials at different levels of the bureaucracy, is dealt with in Chen 2012, and the search for civil law and its adjudication is wonderfully presented in Huang 1996.
  372.  
  373. Bodde, Derk, and Clarence Morris. Law in Imperial China: Exemplified by 190 Ch’ing Dynasty Cases. Translated from the Hsing-an hui-lan, with Historical, Social, and Juridical Commentaries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967.
  374. DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674733213Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375. Judicial cases mostly from the early years of the 19th century translated with reference to relevant sections in the translations of Qing law. With useful introductions to concepts and practice of law.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Chen, Li. “Legal Specialists and Judicial Administration in Late Imperial China, 1651–1911.” Late Imperial China 33.1 (2012): 1–54.
  378. DOI: 10.1353/late.2012.0000Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  379. Legal training of Chinese officials and their assistants has attracted attention with the more sophisticated knowledge of Chinese legal practice under the late empire. This is the first major study of these assistants, their training and status, and also a good entrance to the study of the muyou/assistants in general; it also provides insight in the role of the private litigation masters.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Heuschert, Dorothea. Die Gesetzgebung der Qing für die Mongolen im 17. Jahrhundert, anhand des Mongolischen Gesetzbuches aus der Kangxi-Zeit (1662–1722). Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998.
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  383. Discusses the development of law in early Qing and how traditional Mongolian and Chinese law was activated to serve the new rulers. Includes translations from the law book with details of rule over the Mongols. Rather technical.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Huang, Philip C. C. Civil Justice in Qing China: Representation versus Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.
  386. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  387. Based on the study of 628 cases from 1750 to the 20th century, this study demonstrates that there are more aspects to Chinese jurisprudence than often assumed. Some civil cases were solved by meditation, but the main argument is that there existed a legal system to adjudicate when other means of conflict solutions were exhausted. Important for a more nuanced view on Chinese law.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Jones, William C. The Great Qing Code. Translated by William C. Jones with Tianquan Cheng and Yongling Jiang. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994.
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  391. Translation of the statutes with notes in the Qing Code but not the substatutes. The translators used the edition of Xue Yunsheng 薛允升 Duli cunyi (讀例存疑) from 1905, easily available in a punctuated version, Duli cunyi chongkan ben (讀例存疑重刋本) (Taipei, 1970). There is a good introduction into law in Chinese society at the time, but it needs updating based on the understanding of Chinese jurisprudence in more recent studies.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Waley-Cohen, Joanna. Exile in Mid-Qing China, Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758–1820. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991.
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  395. A study of banishment as a punishment in the enlarged territory of the Qing Empire and often a long way from home. When used as a kind of migration to populate Xinjiang, the actual stay may not have been such a severe punishment. With details of the banished, both criminals and officials, and what happened to them later.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Military Affairs
  398.  
  399. The Qing dynasty was a military dynasty, founded by military organization and conquest, and throughout the dynasty the military organization of the banners played a crucial role. Bannermen became literary officials, but the military organization of the banners sustained the dynasty to the end. Martial virtues and techniques were part of their status, dominated by archery and riding, but firearms played a crucial role from the start to the end. Descriptions of military campaigns and organization may be found in Perdue 2005 (cited under Territorial Expansion and Consolidation). Waley-Cohen 2006 is the best title to consult when starting a study of military affairs. Ten military campaigns are counted for in the Qianlong period, two of them with countries that remained independent, and therefore the campaigns were unsuccessful seen from the Qing perspective. Dai 2004 analyzes the war with Burma/Myanmar. The important question of logistics and financing of warfare are dealt with in Chen 1992, and Di Cosmo 2009 has five contributions on various aspects of military culture in the early Qing period.
  400.  
  401. Chen Feng (陈锋) Qingdai junfei yanjiu (清代军费研究). Wuhan, China: Wuhan Daxue chubanshe, 1992.
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  403. A thorough study of military finances, both the garrisons of banners and the Green Standard Army, and the forces on campaigns, including the rewards and compensations to participants and the final calculation of campaign expenses. Extensive use of archives.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Dai Yingcong. “A Disguised Defeat: The Myanmar Campaign of the Qing Dynasty.” Modern Asian Studies 38.1 (2004): 145–189.
  406. DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X04001040Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. The war with Burma/Myanmar in the late 1760s studied for the first time using extensive Chinese archives with details about the Qing commanders, the truce with no resumption of war, and how, after some years, relations were more or less back to normal.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Di Cosmo, Nicola, ed. Military Culture in Imperial China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
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  411. Starting in early China, this volume has five articles with topics connected to the period, including the changes in the relationship between the civil wen 文 and the military wu武 from early to high Qing, how the military was financed, and how war and trade should be understood in the period.
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Waley-Cohen, Joanna. The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military under the Qing Dynasty. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006.
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  415. Four previously published essays, updated and with an introduction on the militarization of culture in the Qing dynasty and how it was shown in daily life, on special occasions, and in commemorating. By one of the pioneers in the study of military in the Qing period.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Territorial Expansion and Consolidation
  418.  
  419. Territorial expansion beyond Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, and Ming China started with the naval conquest of Taiwan after Southern Ming forces were defeated and Taiwan became Chinese (Andrade 2007). The conquest of the central Asian territories of Outer Mongolia, East Turkestan, and Tibet to the mid-18th century is the topic of Perdue 2005, also giving a historical survey going back to Ming times. Dabringhaus 1994 shows convincingly the politics of the final inclusion of Tibet in the Qing Empire at the end of the 18th century. Fletcher 1978 and Di Cosmo 2009 are both useful surveys of the position of Central Asia in the Qing Empire, and Fletcher 1995 includes pioneering studies on some of the people in East Turkestan under Qing rule. Crossley 2012 is a convenient survey of Qing historical writings on the expansion, and Crossley, et al. 2006 brings together specialist studies on different regions of Qing expansion. The south was also a territory for expansion of regular Qing rule in territories that had been under the Ming system of “tribal” administration. Hostetler 2001 is a study of the presentation of territory and of foreign or strange people, here mostly the Miao of Guizhou, as symbolic dominance.
  420.  
  421. Andrade, Tonio. How Taiwan Became Chinese: Dutch, Spanish, and Han Colonization in the Seventeenth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
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  423. The story of how Taiwan ended up as a prefecture under Qing government after European intermezzos and the intervention of the anti-Qing forces under Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga). Based mostly on the archives of the Dutch East India Company and holdings in Taiwan.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Crossley, Pamela Kyle. “The Historical Writing of Qing Imperial Expansion.” In Oxford History of Historical Writing, 1400–1800. Vol. 3. Edited by José Rabasa, Masayuki Sato, Edoardo Tortarolo, and Daniel Woolf, 43–59. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. A short introduction to the development in Qing historical writings and their understanding of the expansion of the empire from around 1600 to the mid-18th century, with a useful bibliography.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Crossley, Pamela Kyle, Helen P. Siu, and Donald S. Sutton, eds. Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
  430. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  431. Brings together twelve studies by specialists on regions from Mongolia over East Turkestan and how the smaller ethnic groups in the south were dealt with. Also Hainan and southern coastal regions. Omitted are Manchuria and Tibet. Originated in a 1996 conference, but papers are updated so it is a good place to get an overview over recent studies.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Dabringhaus, Sabine. Das Qing-Imperium als Vision und Wirklichkeit: Tibet im Laufbahn und Schriften des Song Yun (1752–1835). Stuttgart: Steiner, 1994.
  434. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. Song Yun 松筠 of the Mongol Plain Blue Banner was amban in Lhasa 1794–1799 after the war with Nepal. His writings about Tibet, both general knowledge and more practical administrative, are used here to study how bureaucratic government was introduced to replace, or at least weaken, the power of the nobility and the Lamaist hierarchy.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Di Cosmo, Nicola. “The Qing and Inner Asia: 1636–1800.” In The Cambridge History of Inner Asia, the Chinggisid Age. Edited by Nicola Di Cosmo, Allen J. Frank, and Peter B. Golden, 333–362. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
  438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. An authoritative survey of the field by one of its preeminent historians, here looking at it more with a focus on the Central Asian side rather than on China.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Fletcher, Joseph F. “Ch’ing Inner Asia c. 1800.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 10, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911: Part 1. Edited by John K. Fairbank, 35–106. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
  442. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521214476Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. A survey, and also original research, into the relations between China and Central Asia, both inside and outside the Qing borders, on the eve of new developments in international relations. Much has subsequently been done on these topics but still useful and stimulating.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Fletcher, Joseph F. Studies on Chinese and Islamic Inner Asia. Edited by Beatrice Forbes Manz. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1995.
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  447. Collection of articles by the eminent historian of China and Central Asia, including “Integrative History: Parallels and Interconnections in the Early Modern Period, 1500–1800,” and first published here, “The Naqshbandiyya in Northwest China.”
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Hostetler, Laura. Qing Colonial Enterprise, Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
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  451. Pathbreaking study of the use of maps and ethnography as a political instrument to define and control the empire and demonstrating that the Qing in this respect was equal to Western countries in the 18th century.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Perdue, Peter C. China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2005.
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  455. An exhaustive study of the Central Asian policies of the Qing dynasty up to around 1760 and the conquest of the Mongols and East Turkestanis. Includes studies of the Mongols, particularly the Zunghar state, and how it was eliminated by the Qing and the Russians. Uses sources in a variety of languages, but there are still a few to explore.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Demographic History
  458.  
  459. The size and structure of the population of China in Ming and Qing dynasties has been the subject of studies and debates since the pioneering study Ho 1959. Skinner 1987 is a meticulous case study to understand population data. Discovery of new sources and application of demographic methods may shed light on various aspects of population data, such as Lee and Campbell 1997. Cao 2001 is the authoritative Chinese study using the best available methods and supporting the view of a less dramatic rise in population figures in the 18th century than seen in some studies.
  460.  
  461. Cao Shuji 曹树基. Zhongguo renkou shi (中国人口史). Vol. 5, Qing shiqi (清时期). Shanghai, China: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2001.
  462. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463. A thorough study of population development in different regions and for the country as a whole. As part of a six-volume series, edited by Ge Jianxiong (葛剑雄), it includes the results of the previous volumes in the argumentation. In the lower range of calculations on population increases in the Mid-Qing.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Ho, Ping-ti. Studies on the Population of China, 1368–1953. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.
  466. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. The first major attempt to challenge the population data available in Chinese sources based on tax units rather than heads. Shows how studies of living conditions such as migration and food production may lead to better results but now largely superseded by more sophisticated demographic studies.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Lee, James, and Cameron Campbell. Fate and Fortune in Rural China: Social Stratification and Population Behavior in Liaoning 1774–1873. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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  471. A meticulous study of a Han Chinese migrants who settled north of Shenyang in Manchuria in the 18th century and the thirty-three following census still preserved. Shows not only the fluctuations in population but above all how the status in family and banner was important for survival, and how marriage and family patterns changed with circumstances.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Skinner, G. William. “Sichuan’s Population in the Nineteenth Century: Lessons from Disaggregated Data.” Late Imperial China 8.1 (1987): 1–79.
  474. DOI: 10.1353/late.1987.0008Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  475. Starting from an analysis of archival material, many of the pitfalls of population data and how to cope with them are shown convincingly. Confirms the well-known pattern of the occasional census with counts of the population but more often just repetitious or fictitious data.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Social Structure
  478.  
  479. Naquin and Rawski 1987 attempts to give a still useful description of society and social structures and its regional variations in the 18th century. Rowe 2002 is a good overview and shows convincingly the interplay between society and institutions, while Ownby 1996 introduces secret societies or similar associations. Our understanding of the elite, or gentry, and its role in society still has a considerable debt to Chang 1955 on the 19th century and Ho 1962, which focuses on the degree holding of the elite, while Beattie 1979 is a useful corrective based on a local study of wealth and power. Elman 2000 (cited under Education and Intellectual Life) deals with the issue in the context of the examination system.
  480.  
  481. Beattie, Hilary J. Land and Lineage in China: A Study of T’ung-ch’eng County, Anhwei, in the Ming and Ch’ing Dynasties. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
  482. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. Shows convincingly that local power in Tongcheng, Anhui province, to a large extent depended on wealth and land holdings and the opportunities it provided, as well as on degree holding, and that the interplay between these factors, at least for some lineages, provided a stable position for generations.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Chang, Chung-li. The Chinese Gentry: Studies in Their Role in Nineteenth Century Chinese Society. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1955.
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  487. Passing one of the official examinations was important for social position and one’s leadership role in local society, combined with the access to public office. This is the basic study of the size and role of the elite/gentry and its constitution and numerical size from a time when sources are more abundant. The chronological divide is the Taiping Rebellion, not 1840.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Ho, Ping-ti. The Ladder of Success in Imperial China: Aspects of Social Mobility, 1368–1911. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962.
  490. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  491. The focus is on social mobility combined with the examination system, particularly the provincial examinations and above. Also deals with groups in society other that scholars, with an awareness that economic conditions could be important. A very meticulous study that exhausted these kinds of sources and demonstrated their limitation for the study of social mobility.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Naquin, Susan, and Evelyn Rawski. Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.
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  495. The role and developments of various groups and their interaction is described, ending with a very stimulating section on regional variations, almost like a cultural geography of macroregions. The authors are emphatic that it was too early to write a history of Chinese society in the period. Hopefully they, or others, will take up the challenge for an updating.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Ownby, David. Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.
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  499. A study of secret societies, or brotherhoods, and their role in society, by some officials seen as a substitute family or lineages. Focus is on the Tiandihui, Heaven and Earth Society, in the late 18th century, revealed to be more a tradition than an association that could threaten social stability.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Rowe, William T. “Social Stability and Social Change.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 9, The Ch’ing Empire to 1800: Part 1. Edited by Willard J. Peterson, 473–562. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
  502. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521243346Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  503. The participation of government and private agencies in securing a decent life for the rising, and also migrating, population and how institutions in local subbureaucratic government, inherited from the Ming dynasty, were adapted, revitalized, or replaced by the lineages and other forms of associations, some regional, and including “secret” societies.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Daily Life and Lifestyles
  506.  
  507. Studies of family relations and gender have shown rich variations in the lifestyles, challenging many embedded prejudices, both Chinese and non-Chinese. Mann 2002 is a good overview. Theiss 2004 adds new aspects to women’s possibilities to act in a society that normally assumes that they stay behind walls. Illness was part of life as in other societies, and Hanson 2011 is a good place to start on epidemics. City life in various aspects is the focus of articles in Skinner 1977, and Naquin 2000 and Zhu 2003 show the spatial aspects of city life, exemplified by the capital (Beijing), the first by mapping the religious life and the latter centered on the imperial palace.
  508.  
  509. Hanson, Marta E. Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine: Disease and the Geographic Imagination in Late Imperial China. London: Routledge, 2011.
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  511. Covering the Ming and Qing periods on epidemics and the changing concept after the dynastic change, this is a very useful introduction to the study of Chinese medicine, presenting meticulously many important titles. Reads like a research guide.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Mann, Susan. “Women, Families, and Gender Relations.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 9, The Ch’ing Empire to 1800: Part 1. Edited by Willard J. Peterson, 428–472. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
  514. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521243346Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. An excellent survey of aspects of daily life that have been the focus of much research in recent years, including gender studies of both women and men, but also with an eye to how occupational patterns influenced daily life. To some degree dependent on how families and persons are depicted in literature and art. Note later studies by the author to complement this survey.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Naquin, Susan. Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
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  519. This magisterial study of the temples of Beijing and the life that went on around them is a good start to understand aspects of life that are sometimes forgotten. A substantial part is on the early Qing period, but its value is increased by bridging the dynastic change-over.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Skinner, G. William, ed. The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1977.
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  523. A number of the articles in this important collection deal with city life in the period, seen from various roles in the city such as officials and traders and the systems used to control the city. Still useful, also to understand the idea of regional systems that has played a considerable role in studies of the period.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Theiss, Janet M. Disgraceful Matters: The Politics of Chastity in Eighteenth-Century China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
  526. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  527. Government norm for widows’ behavior was that of chastity, but reality was, not unexpectedly, different. Based on testimonies in 866 legal cases, this study confirms and concludes that by acting within the framework set out for chastity, women were heard as they could now do something of public interest, suicide being the ultimate act.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Zhu, Jianfei. Chinese Spatial Strategies: Imperial Beijing, 1420–1911. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
  530. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  531. A stimulating study of the spatial layout of Beijing by an architect venturing into the field of social and cultural analysis. The main source is a map from 1750. Careful use of sources in their chronological context is, however, not the strength of the book.
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Economic Conditions
  534.  
  535. Then early Qing was a time for economic development, and the best overview is Myers and Wang 2002. Ch’üan and Kraus 1975 is a classic study on prices and trade in rice and the sources for our knowledge about it and should be supplemented by the more recent case studies in Rawski and Li 1992. Kishimoto 2010 is a Chinese translation of a collection of articles on price history and other topics by a leading Japanese economic historian. Dunstan 1996 gives a view into the thinking of officials about economic matters and the changes toward a larger role for the market. Moll-Murata, et al. 2005 breaks into the world of the handicraft industries and the rules and regulations governing much of the activity. Fu 2007 is a rich depository of articles by the leading Chinese historians on agricultural history, and Li 1998 is a follow-up by one of Fu’s prominent students, arguing for rational agriculture in the lower Yangzi region. Isett 2007 follows the migrants into Manchuria and discusses how the government dealt with accompanying problems.
  536.  
  537. Ch’üan, Han-sheng, and Richard A. Kraus. Mid-Ch’ing Rice Markets and Trade: An Essay in Price History. Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1975.
  538. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  539. A close examination of price reports from the first half of the 18th century shows that they provided the administrators at the time, and later the historians, with means to ascertain the situation and reveals that the market at that time could cope with seasonal variations. Price data are presented in appendices.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Dunstan, Helen. Conflicting Counsels to Confuse the Age: A Documentary Study of Political Economy in Qing China, 1644–1840. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1996.
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  543. Shows, by extensive translations from documents, how officials and others wrote publicly and privately on economic matters. General chapters on activism, doubts, and inequality, and on fiscal policies and the market. Argues that some kind of economic liberalism can be traced to the 18th century.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Fu Yiling 傅衣凌. Ming-Qing nongcun shehui jingji: Ming-Qing shehui jingi bianqian lun (明清农村社会经济: 明清社会经济变迁论). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007.
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  547. A collection of articles by one of China’s leading historians of his generation with extensive field work in the southern parts of China. On the economic and social conditions in rural society, many of them in the Qing period. Originally published in 1961.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Isett, Christopher M. State, Peasant, and Merchant in Qing Manchuria, 1644–1862. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
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  551. A careful study of people and economic activities in Manchuria with a rising population, including some migrants. Good to show the social relations and the working of the state at a local level. Less successful when trying to see developments in a global context, particularly comparing with Great Britain.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Kishimoto Mio 岸本美緒. Qingdai Zhongguo de wujia yu jingji bodong (清代中国的物价与经济波动). Translated by Liu Dirui 刘迪瑞. Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2010.
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  555. Translated from the Japanese Shindai Chūgoku no bukka to keizai hendō (清代中国の物価と経済変動) (Tokyo: Kenbun shuppan, 1997). Articles by the author on different topics in economic history, including foreign trade with specific countries and the impact on Chinese society. Attempts to outline trends in commodity prices, first of all grain.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Li Bozhong (李伯重). Agricultural Development in Jiangnan, 1620–1850. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1998.
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. Argues on the basis of the lower Yangzi region that the economy was not stagnant but able to adapt to changing conditions with a sustained growth in most sectors of the economy through the 18th century.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Moll-Murata, Christine, and Jianze Song, and Hans Ulrich Vogel, eds. Chinese Handicraft Regulations of the Qing Dynasty. Munich: Iudicium Verlag, 2005.
  562. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  563. From a workshop on Chinese handicraft regulations, this volume presents twenty-three shorter or longer studies showing how the regulations can serve as sources to answer many questions the historians are apt to ask for every society in the period. An excellent guide, also by Chinese historians in Chinese, to further study of urban population below the elite during the Qing dynasty.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Myers, Ramon H., and Yeh-chien Wang. “Economic Developments, 1644–1800.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 9, The Ch’ing Empire to 1800: Part 1. Edited by Willard J. Peterson, 563–645. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
  566. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521243346Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  567. Authoritative description of development of state and private economy and of internal and foreign trade after imperial consolidation toward 1700. The 18th century saw rising prosperity with beginning problems. Economic policies could basically ensure that the economic, technological, and human forces worked together to create reasonable but not extravagant living conditions for the majority of the people.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Rawski, Thomas, and Lillian Li, eds. Chinese History in Economic Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
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  571. The editors give in their introduction important considerations on our understanding of Chinese economic history, followed by five articles focusing on grain prices in various regions, from north to south and east to west.
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Education and Intellectual Life
  574.  
  575. Civil service examinations were continued by the Qing dynasty immediately after the conquest. Elman 2000 gives a good overview to many facets of the examination system. Education was also important for groups other than those striving for the highest degrees, including women. Elman and Woodside 1993 has a number of articles dealing with these questions. Rowe 2001 is a pathbreaking study of the thinking of an important official in the 18th century. Santangelo 2003 has found emotions in various forms in many writings of the period. Foreign intellectual contacts, particularly with Europe, and Chinese Christianity is best approached through the handbook Standaert and Tiedeman 2001–2010, and Jami 2011 brings us up to date on the Kangxi emperor and his studies with the Jesuits.
  576.  
  577. Elman, Benjamin. A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
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  579. A massive study of the civil examinations in Ming and Qing until they were abolished in the early 20th century. Chapters and lengthy passages on the early Qing period. The analysis of the social function of the examination system may be subject for controversy, but the material on the changes in the system over time and how different subjects were promoted or demoted will stand for a long time.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Elman, Benjamin A., and Alexander Woodside, eds. Education and Society in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
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  583. Fourteen papers from a conference in June 1989 on how different groups such as women and Manchus were educated in Qing society and on different topics such as law and mathematics. Includes institutions and changes during the period. For several of the authors, it is worth looking for their later publications, but the volume is a convenient entry into this rather broad field of scholarship.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Jami, Katherine. The Emperor’s New Mathematics: Western Learning and Imperial Authority During the Kangxi Reign (1662–1722). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
  586. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199601400.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  587. Details of how the Kangxi emperor studied mathematics out of interest but also introducing Western learning as part of the effort to legitimize Manchu rulership over China and the intellectual elite. Includes lecture notes, letters, and missionary reports to Europe and consciously builds on new ways to look at science and the interchange of knowledge.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Rowe, William T. Saving the World: Chen Hongmou and Elite Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
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  591. Chen Hongmou 陈宏谋 (b. 1696–d. 1771) was among the leading provincial administrators of the 18th century also serving in high office in the capital. Using the biographical approach, the author gives the reader a rich view of the development in administrative thinking on various aspects of society and economy and the roles of individuals and the state to make local societies work.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Santangelo, Paolo. Sentimental Education in Chinese History: An Interdisciplinary Textual Research on Ming and Qing Sources. Sinica Leidensia 60. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003.
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  595. The first volume from a project started by the author about expressions of emotions and states of mind and how they are handled in the sphere between the personal ideal and changing social realities. A very rich introduction to these aspects in literary and other texts from the period, using the results of modern social sciences, psychology, and linguistics, and intended both for the Chinese and the foreign reader.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Standaert, Nicolas, and R. G. Tiedeman, eds. Handbook of Christianity in China. 2 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2001–2010.
  598. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  599. The history of Christianity in China during the period has received considerable attention, both as a Chinese religion brought by European missionaries and the knowledge they carried in both directions between China and Europe. This handbook has short introductions to a number of items and good introductions to both Chinese and non-Chinese literature. Volume 1 covers 635 to 1800, while Volume 2 covers 1800 to the present.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. China and the World
  602.  
  603. New understandings of China, or the Qing Empire, and its relations with the surrounding world before the Opium War have been an important development, looking more for similarities than peculiar differences of past presentations. Added to this is comparative research to explain the different development at the Eastern and Western extremes of the Eurasian continent, again stressing similarities in order to better identify the differences.
  604.  
  605. Diplomacy and Trade
  606.  
  607. The Qing Empire continued, when appropriate, Ming traditions in foreign relations that China was the major power in the region, which it was. Seaborne envoys, including those from Europa, were in principle treated as “tribute bearers,” but realities were much more complex. Wills 1984 remains the classical study of these relations in the second half of the 17th century. Mancall 1971 is still the best introduction to Qing relations with Russia, leading to the two treaties that more or less fixed most of their borders and set rules for their interaction. The trade relations on the south coast of China with the European countries have been the subject of extensive research. Van Dyke 2005 is a good place to start, and Mosca 2013 shows how Chinese dealings with the foreigners on the southern borders gradually changed from frontier politics to foreign politics. Hamashita 2008 puts the foreign trade of the Qing dynasty into a larger perspective from a Japanese approach, and Zhao 2013 shows convincingly the development of private maritime trade. Fu 1966 is a good collection of documents on aspects of international relations.
  608.  
  609. Fu, Lo-shu. A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations (1644–1820). 2 vols. Translated by Lo-shu Fu. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1966.
  610. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  611. Translation from Chinese, including documents in foreign archives and with copious notes, bibliographies, and an index in Volume 2. The translations are still useful and a very handy way to approach Qing relations with many countries in the period.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Hamashita Takeshi (濱下武志). China, East Asia, and the Global Economy: Regional and Historical Perspectives. Edited by Linda Grove and Mark Selden. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2008.
  614. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  615. Eight articles by a leading Japanese economic historian on various aspects of the role of China in international and regional trade, including the flow of silver and the tribute system and seen in the longer perspective. Some of the articles have been published before in translation, and some have not. No information on time and place for the original publication in Japanese.
  616. Find this resource:
  617. Mancall, Mark. Russia and China: Their Diplomatic Relations to 1728. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
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  619. Still the most detailed study of Chinese–Russian relations and the signing of the two treaties, but the opening of archives and the better understanding of the Manchus would presumably yield new results.
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Mosca, Matthew W. From Frontier Policy to Foreign Policy: The Question of India and the Transformation of Geopolitics in Qing China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.
  622. DOI: 10.11126/stanford/9780804782241.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  623. A very detailed study of how the Qing government dealt with India as a territorial unit on the southern border and also as a region ruled by the British who traded on the China coast and attempted to establish direct diplomatic connections in European style. Also covers how the concern for the frontier developed into a more general foreign policy toward the middle of the 19th century.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. Van Dyke, Paul A. The Canton Trade, Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700–1845. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005.
  626. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  627. Based on extensive use of American and a number of European archives, but not British, this is an important supplement to the rich literature on this trade indicating the rational choices and executions of the trade on both the Chinese and the foreign side, and also the failings of the system to systematize information and act on it toward the end of the period.
  628. Find this resource:
  629. Wills, John E. Embassies and Illusions: Dutch and Portuguese Envoys to K’ang-hsi, 1666–1687. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.
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  631. Dutch and Portuguese envoys were in principle “tribute bearers,” but the author shows convincingly that there was talent and willingness from both sides to bend rules and that the Qing was moving toward the much more flexible approach to foreign relations that characterized much of its dealings with the continental countries.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Zhao, Gang. The Qing Opening to the Ocean: Chinese Maritime Policies, 1684–1757. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2013.
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  635. Chinese ships ploughing the waves of the Chinese seas and trading with surrounding countries fill the pages of this important book on the coastal borders with digressions to the more landbound. The importance of the European trade, concentrated on Canton, for China and the Chinese economy set in its proper perspective.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. Chinese Society in World Perspective
  638.  
  639. The world history aspect of Chinese history and Chinese society has come to play an increasing role inside and outside China with a realization that in the 18th century Chinese society may have been as developed as Europe’s. Dai 1999 is a good attempt to apply this approach to the 18th century. International interest has focused on explanations for the Euro-American take-off from around 1800. Wong 1997 and Pomeranz 2000 have led the way, the first with an emphasis on political developments and the other on perhaps contingent economic factors. Goldstone 2004 introduces a way to look at the economy before modern science and steam technology. There has been a rich debate inside and outside China, and the historian of virtually any aspect of Qing history can only hope that it will continue for a long time, as valuable sources are discovered or reinterpreted.
  640.  
  641. Dai Yi (戴逸) ed. 18 shiji de Zhongguo yu shijie (18 世纪的中国与世界). 9 vols. Shenyang, China: Liaohai chubanshe, 1999.
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  643. An ambitious attempt to write a Chinese history of the 18th century for Chinese readers. Foreign students may also benefit both for its contents and the attempts to see China in the world. Each volume is written by one or two authors, attached to the Institute of Qing History at the Renmin/People’s University, covering thought and culture, military affairs, border nationalities, peasants, economy, society, politics, and foreign relations.
  644. Find this resource:
  645. Goldstone, Jack A. “Neither Late-Imperial nor Early Modern: Efflorescences and the Qing Formation in World History.” In The Qing Formation and World Historical Time. Edited by Lynn A. Struve, 242–302. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004.
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  647. Introducing the concept of “efflorescence” of an economy, more or less separated from technological improvements, the author shows that the Chinese economy did well in a global context in the 18th century and that it was only in the 19th century that the European, first of all the British, economy took off and became “modern” with the use of steam power.
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  649. Pomeranz, Kenneth. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
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  651. Controversial study on how and when the Eastern or Western end of the Eurasian continent held a dominating position in the world economy. Argues that there were differences in various technologies but neither was really ahead until the European take-off around 1800 and due to contingent factors.
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  653. Wong, R. Bin. China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997.
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  655. A comparative study of Chinese and European developments searching the factors that eventually led to European dominance from around 1850. Emphasis on the political development of Europe and the analytical tools to use this in comparison with the Chinese development, which is then studied on its own premises.
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