Emperor and Ancestor
State and Lineage in South China
Published on 1. March 2007
Book
Hardback
480 pages
978-0-8047-5318-0 (ISBN)
Description
This book summarizes twenty years of the author's work in historical anthropology and documents his argument that in China, ritual provided the social glue that law provided in the West. The book offers a readable history of the special lineage institutions for which south China has been noted and argues that these institutions fostered the mechanisms that enabled south China to be absorbed into the imperial Chinese state-first, by introducing rituals that were acceptable to the state, and second, by providing mechanisms that made group ownership of property feasible and hence made it possible to pool capital for land reclamation projects important to the state. Just as taxation, defense, and recognition came together with the emergence of powerful lineages in the sixteenth century, their disintegration in the late nineteenth century signaled the beginnings of a new Chinese state.
Reviews / Votes
"In yet another fine monograph focused on the history of lineage in South China, Faure shows that administrative transformation of county government and ritual reforms leading lineages to create family temples led to the emergence of lineage-centered society... A welcome addition to other pivotal studies on lineage." - CHOICE "David Faure's satisfying new study not only shows us how the lands and people of Guangzhou's Pearl River Delta were physically and culturally made Chinese, it turns a key feature of the family system-the lineage-into an institution with an actual history." -The Journal of Chinese Studies "For more than twenty years, through is extensive archival and fieldwork in the New Territories of Hong Kong, David Faure has established himself as one of the premier authorities on the history of Chinese Lineage and society. His newest book, Emperor and Ancestor solidifies that reputation... This is an important book that should appeal to a broad range of readers." - The China Review "David Faure's Emperor and Ancestor is a thought-provoking study that seeks to historicize the institution of the lineage in late imperial South China...Faure crafts a detailed and convincing narrative of the rise and decline of the lineage from early Ming times through the fall of the imperial order in the early twentieth century, a narrative that breaks new ground and will be of great use to historians, anthropologists, and all students of Chinese history and society." - Harvard Journal of Asiatic StudiesMore details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Palo Alto
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Edition type
New edition
Product notice
Cloth
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
762 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8047-5318-0 (9780804753180)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
David Faure is Professor of History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the coeditor of Down to Earth: The Territorial Bond in South China (Stanford University Press, 1995).
Content
Contents A note for the non-specialist reader Introduction 1. Introduction Historical geography 2. Exotic Guangzhou 3. Confucian incursions 4. We and they 5. The land From registered households to lineages 6. Early Ming society 7. The recession of military service 8. The standardization of village rituals 9. Administrative transition Lineages gentrified 10. Lineage building: the Huo surname of Foshan 11. Local magnates and land development From Ming to Qing 12. Loyalty in the Ming-Qing transition 13. Power reshuffle in the early Qing 14. Proliferation of lineage institutions 15. The ordering of community in ritual life 16. Incorporation: the power of an idea 17. A short note on prosperity The nineteenth century transformation 18. The Mulberry Garden Dyke and Its Politics 19. From paramilitary to militia 20. Local power in the Taiping Rebellion 21. The foreign element in Pearl River delta society 22. Contradictions of the nation state: the backwardness of lineages Epilogue 23. Beyond the Pearl River delta Bibliography Glossary