Old China Books

About Old China Books

"How can mankind move upward," John K. Fairbank once asked, "except by standing on the shoulders and faces of the older generation?" Join Micah Muscolino and his guests as they put feet to faces and discuss the best books about Chinese history that no one reads anymore.

Publisher

Micah Muscolino

Category

history

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

2 Feb 2022

Latest episode

28 Aug 2023

Latest episodes

7 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   28 Aug 2023

   Matthew Sommer on T'ung-Tsu Ch'ü [Qu Tongzu 瞿同祖], Law and Society in Traditional China

   Matthew Sommer joins Micah to discuss Law and Society in Traditional China (Mouton, 1961). Listeners should also check out Matt's two groundbreaking books on Chinese legal history: Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (https://www.amazon.com/Society-Late-Imperial-China-Culture/dp/0804745595) (Stanford University Press, 2002) and Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China: Survival Strategies and Judicial Interventions (https://www.amazon.com/Polyandry-Wife-Selling-Qing-Dynasty-China/dp/0520287037) (University of California Press, 2015). EPISODE BIBLIOGRAPHY Secondary works: 瞿同祖《中国法律与中国社会》(上海商务印书馆, 1947). Ch'ü, T'ung-Tsu, Local Government in China under the Ch'ing (Harvard University Press, 1962). Ch'ü, T'ung-Tsu, The History of Chinese Feudal Society (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020) [English translation of 《中国封建社会》 (1937)]. Chang， Chung-li, The Income of the Chinese Gentry (University of Washington Press, 1962). Jing Junjian, “Hierarchy in the Qing Dynasty,” Social Sciences in China: A Quarterly Journal 3:1 (1982): 156–92. 经君健《清代社会的贱民等级》 (中国人民大学出版社, 2009). Derk Bodde and Clarence Morris, Law in Imperial China: Exemplified by 190 Ch'ing Dynasty Cases (Harvard University Press, 1967). David C. Buxbaum, 1971: “Some Aspects of Civil Procedure and Practice at the Trial Level in Tanshui and Hsinchu from 1789 to 1895,” Journal of Asian Studies 30:2 (1971), pp. 255-279. Philip C. C. Huang, Civil Justice in China: Representation and Practice in the Qing (Stanford University Press, 1996). Melissa Macauley, Social Power and Legal Culture: Litigation Masters in Late Imperial China (Stanford University Press, 1998). Bradly W. Reed, Talons and Teeth: County Clerks and Runners in the Qing Dynasty (Stanford University Press, 2000). Primary sources (recommendations and comments courtesy of Matthew Sommer): 祝慶祺編次、鮑書芸參定 《刑案匯覽》[1834] (reprint edition 成文出版社, 1968). 吳潮、何錫儼合編；薛允升鑒定; 何錫儼,《刑案滙覽續編 》 [1887](reprint edition, 文海出版社, 1970). 黃六鴻 (Kangxi era),《福惠全書》. 汪輝組 (late Qianlong-early Jiaqing era), 《佐治藥言》, 《學治臆說》, and sequels. 劉衡 (Jiaqing-Daoguang): 《蜀僚問答》，《庸吏庸言》，《庸吏餘談》. Liu Heng is interesting because he served as magistrate of Ba County, so you can compare the cases he actually judged with the self-serving stuff he wrote in his books — quite illuminating! But Ch'ü's favorite by far is Wang Huizu. Also, the most accessible version of the Qing code, which includes valuable commentaries, is the late Qing edition by Xue Yunsheng called 《讀例存疑》. There are various published editions, but the following is (in my opinion) the best one to use for scholarly citation: 薛允升 (Guangxu era): 《<讀例存疑>重刊本》 (5 vols.), punctuated and edited by 黃靜嘉 (Chinese Materials and Research Aids Service Center, 1970). But there is also an incredibly useful full-text searchable version, free access online, thanks to the Japanese legal historian Professor Terada Hiroaki (emeritus, Kyoto University): http://www.terada.law.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dlcy/index.htm

2. 

   12 Dec 2022

   Jeffrey Wasserstrom on White and Jacoby, Thunder Out of China.

   Jeffrey Wasserstrom joins Micah to discuss Theodore H. White and Annalee Jacoby, Thunder Out of China (William Sloane Assoc., 1946). Interested listeners should take a look at Jeffrey Wasserstrom's Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082VL39XH/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0)(Columbia Global Reports, 2020). Here's a bibliography of the other books and articles that we mentioned in the episode: Stephen R. MacKinnon and Oris Friesen. China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s (https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft1s2004h3;query=;brand=ucpress). University of California Press, 1987. Lloyd E. Eastman, Seeds of Destruction: Nationalist China in War and Revolution, 1937-1949. Stanford University Press, 1984. Rana Mitter, Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. Hans J. van de Ven, War and Nationalism in China, 1925-1945. RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Diana Lary, The Chinese People at War: Human Suffering and Social Transformation, 1937-1945. Cambridge University Press, 2010. Rebecca Nedostup, “Burying, Repatriating, and Leaving the Dead in Wartime and Postwar China and Taiwan, 1937-1955,” Journal of Chinese History 1:1 (2017), 111-139. Nicole E. Barnes, Intimate Communities: Wartime Healthcare and the Birth of Modern China, 1937-1945. University of California Press, 2018. Aaron W. Moore, Writing War: Soldiers Record the Japanese Empire. Harvard University Press, 2013. Graham Peck, Two Kinds of Time. Houghton Mifflin, 1950. Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China. Spiegel & Grau, 2008. Mike Chinoy, Assignment China: An Oral History of American Journalists in the People's Republic. Columbia University Press, 2023. Frederic Wakeman, Spymaster: Dai Li and the Chinese Secret Service. University of California Press, 2003. John Pomfret, Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China. Henry Holt, 2006. Craig Calhoun, Neither Gods Nor Emperors: Students and the Struggle for Democracy in China. University of California Press, 1994. Bill Lascher, Eve of a Hundred Midnights: The Star-Crossed Love Story of Two WWII Correspondents and Their Epic Escape Across the Pacific. William Morrow, 2016. Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-1949. University of California Press, 1978. Parks Coble, China's War Reporters. Harvard University Press, 2015.

3. 

   23 May 2022

   Elisabeth Köll on Albert Feuerwerker, China's Early Industrialization.

   Elisabeth Köll and Micah discuss Albert Feuerwerker, China’s Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsuan-huai (1844–1916) and Mandarin Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958). For cutting-edge research on the history of business in modern China, take a look at Elisabeth's two books: Elisabeth Köll, Railroads and the Transformation of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019). Elisabeth Köll, From Cotton Mill to Business Empire: The Emergence of Regional Enterprises in Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004). Some of the many sources on the career of Sheng Xuanhuai that were not available to Feuerwerker in the 1950s have been published in these volumes: 陈旭麓, 顾廷龙, 汪熙主编. 陈旭麓, 顾廷龙, 汪熙编 《盛宣怀档案资料》 (上海人民出版社, 2016). 盛宣懷 《盛宣懷實業函電稿》(香港中文大學中國文化研究所; 中央研究院近代史研究所, 1993). 上海图书馆编 《上海图书馆藏盛宣懷档案萃编》(上海古籍出版社, 2008). 北京大學歷史系近代史教研室整理 《盛宣懷未刊信稿》 (上海人民出版社, 2019). 香港中文大學文物館編 《香港中文大學藏盛宣懷檔案全編》 (上海人民出版社, 2021). Works mentioned in the episode are listed below: Madeleine Zelin, Jonathan K. Ocko, and Robert Gardella, ed. Contract and Property in Early Modern China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). David Faure, China and Capitalism: A History of Business Enterprise in Modern China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006). William C. Kirby, “China Unincorporated: Company Law and Business Enterprise in Twentieth-Century China,” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2058950?seq=1)The Journal of Asian Studies 54:1 (1995), pp. 43-63. Marie-Claire Bergère, The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie, 1911-1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Thomas G. Rawski, Economic Growth in Prewar China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). Albert Feuerwerker, “Presidential Address: Questions About China's Early Modern Economic History That I Wish I Could Answer,” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2059035?seq=1) The Journal of Asian Studies 51:4 (1992), pp. 757-769.

4. 

   17 Apr 2022

   Lawrence Zhang on Ping-ti Ho, The Ladder of Success in Imperial China: Aspects of Social Mobility, 1368-1911

   Lawrence Zhang joins Micah to discuss The Ladder of Success in Imperial China: Aspects of Social Mobility, 1368-1911 (Columbia University Press, 1962). You can read some of Lawrence's research on the effects of purchasing offices on the Qing bureaucracy in his article "A Legacy of Success: Office Purchase and State-Elite Relations in Qing China," The Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 73:2 (2013). (https://www.jstor.org/stable/44478280?seq=1) Têng Ssu-yü, "Chinese Influence on the Western Examination System," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 7 (1942-1943), pp. 267-312. (https://doi.org/10.2307/2717830) E. A. Kracke, Jr. "Family Vs. Merit in Chinese Civil Service Examinations Under The Empire," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 10:2 (1947), pp. 103-123. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2718257?seq=1) Michael D. Young, The Rise of the Meritocracy, 1870-2033: An Essay on Education and Equality (London: Thames and Hudson, 1958). Robert P. Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Ch'u, T'ung-tsu, Local Government in China under the Ch'ing (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962). Chang, Chung-li, The Income of the Chinese Gentry, A sequel to "The Chinese Gentry: Studies on their Role in Nineteenth-century Chinese Society." Introduction by Franz Michael (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962). 何炳棣 《讀史閱世六十年》 (香港：中華書局, 2009). [Ping-ti Ho's autobiography.] Iona Man Cheong, The Class of 1761: Examinations, State, and Elites in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). Benjamin A. Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Lee-Campbell Research Group 李中清及康文林的研究团队. China Government Employee Database – Qing (CGED-Q) 中国历史官员量化数据库(清代). (https://www.shss.ust.hk/lee-campbell-group/projects/china-government-employee-database-qing-cged-q/) Miyazaki, Ichisada, China's Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China. Translated by Conrad Schirokauer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981).

5. 

   13 Mar 2022

   Matthew Mosca on John King Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842-1854

   Micah and Matthew Mosca discuss John King Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842-1854 (Harvard University Press, 1953). Check out Matthew's book From Frontier Policy to Foreign Policy: The Question of India and the Transformation of Geopolitics in Qing China (https://www.amazon.com/Frontier-Policy-Foreign-Transformation-Geopolitics-dp-0804797293/dp/0804797293/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1647150878) (Stanford University Press, 2013), which uses Manchu, Mongolian, Chinese sources to reformulate our understanding of Qing China's foreign affairs. For more on Micah's favorite, Wu Jianzhang 吴健彰, see Peter C. Perdue, "Interlopers, Rogues, or Cosmopolitans? Wu Jianzhang and Early Modern Commercial Networks on the China Coast," (https://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/e-journal/issue-25/perdue)Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review 25 (2017). Click here to read the Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period entry on Qiying 耆英 (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Eminent_Chinese_of_the_Ch%27ing_Period/Ch%27i-ying) by Fang Chao-ying. Works mentioned in the episode are listed here: Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910–1918), 3 volumes. Arthur W. Hummel, Sr. Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing period, 1644-1912 (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943-1944), 2 volumes. Mary Clabaugh Wright, "The T'ung-Chih Restoration," Ph. D. Dissertation, Radcliffe College, 1950. Joseph Richmond Levenson, "Crisis of the Mind in Modern China: The Life and Writings of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Down to the Fall of the Empire," Ph. D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1949. James L. Hevia, English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China (Duke University Press, 2009). J.Y. Wong, Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism, and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China (Cambridge University Press, 1998). Joseph Esherick, "Harvard on China: The Apologetics of Imperialism," Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 4:4 (1972), 9-16. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14672715.1972.10406305) 《籌辦夷務始末: 260卷》(故宮博物院, [北京]: 1929-1930). J.K. Fairbank and S.Y. Teng, "On the Transmission of Ch'ing Documents," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 4:1 (1939): 12–46. J.K. Fairbank and S.Y. Teng, "On the Types and Uses of Ch'ing Documents," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 5:1 (1940): 1–71. J.K. Fairbank and S.Y. Teng, "On the Ch'ing Tributary System," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 6:2 (1941): 135–246. Ssu-yü Teng and John K. Fairbank, China's Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1829-1923 (Harvard University Press, 1954). John King Fairbank, The Chinese World Order: Traditional China's Foreign Relations (Harvard University Press, 1968). 《哈佛燕京學社引得. 9, 三十三種清代傳記綜合引得: 第一號》 Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series, Index to Thirty-Three Collections of Ch'ing Dynasty Biographies (1931). James M. Polachek, The Inner Opium War (Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1992). Pär Kristoffer Cassel, Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-Century China and Japan (Oxford University Press, 2012).

6. 

   5 Feb 2022

   The Pilot: Sarah Schneewind on John W. Dardess, "A Ming Landscape"

   Micah and Sarah Schneewind talk about the article “A Ming Landscape: Settlement, Land Use, Labor, and Estheticism in T'ai-ho County, Kiangsi” (https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/1808/14340) by John W. Dardess, which was published in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies in 1989. Anyone who listens to this podcast will enjoy reading Sarah Schneewind's book A Tale of Two Melons: Emperor and Subject in Ming China ( https://www.amazon.com/s?k=tale+of+two+melons+schneewind). Her most recent book is Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos (https://www.amazon.com/Shrines-Political-Harvard-Yenching-Institute-Monograph/dp/0674987144). You can find Sarah's bio here (https://history.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/schneewind.html). And be sure to visit her website The Ming History English Translation Project (https://knit.ucsd.edu/minghistoryinenglish/). These are some of the works mentioned in the episode (with links where possible): 王直 (1379-1462),《抑庵集》[Wang Zhi's collected writings] 《泰和县志》(1879) John W. Dardess, A Ming Society: T'ai-ho County, Kiangsi, Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries (https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft2s2004qh;query=;brand=ucpress) (University of California Press, 1997) Anne Gerritsen, Ji'an Literati and the Local in Song-Yuan-Ming China (Leiden: Brill, 2007) John W. Dardess, More than the Great Wall: The Northern Frontier and Ming National Security, 1368-1644 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020) John W. Dardess, Conquerors and Confucians: Aspects of Political Change in Late Yuan China (https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/1808/13804) (Studies in Oriental Culture) (Columbia University Press, 1973) John W. Dardess, Ideas, Determination, Power: How Zhang Juzheng Dominated China, 1572–82 (https://knit.ucsd.edu/minghistoryinenglish/wp-content/uploads/sites/84/2021/08/03-Zhang-Juzheng-by-Dardess.pdf)

7. 

   2 Feb 2022

   The Trailer

   A little preview of what Old China Books is all about.

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