The Book of Swindles

Reviews / Votes

Overall, the collection deserves the highest praise one can give a publication of popular stories: it's a lot of fun. The scams are wide-ranging in type, the plot devices ingenious, and the translation is carried off with great sensitivity both to the original text and to the audience reading it today. -- Rob Moore * Los Angeles Review of Books China Channel * The Book of Swindles is at once an entertaining and readable introduction to late Ming society, a good resource for further research, and a timely reminder of some of the less savoury connections between the past and our own time. -- Ewan Macdonald * Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies * In The Book of Swindles, Rea and Rusk give us hilarious and sobering proof that swindling isn't just a contemporary concern but has been around for centuries. We are treated to stories of porters cheating officials who cheat porters, of conniving Taoists and gullible officials, of lusty widows who provoke their husbands' death, and of debauched gentry who prey on poor locals. Yet many of these tales sound eerily familiar to today's world, and especially today's China. We are confronted with a widespread, ambient feeling of social mistrust in which people across the land feel that they are constantly being cheated. Besides giving insight into deep societal concerns, The Book of Swindles is a great read. -- Ian Johnson, author of <i>The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao</i> It has been said that the study of China is the study of humanity. In these elegantly translated stories of folly and foibles, we are offered a unique guide to early modern China, as well as insights into the human condition itself. -- Geremie R. Barme, editor of <i>An Educated Man is Not a Pot: On the University</i> What's the oldest scam in the book? Nobody knows, but at least we have the oldest book about scams in China. It's calledThe Book of Swindles, and finally, after four hundred years, Rea and Rusk have presented us with a vivid and entertaining new translation of this classic. Even the chapter titles-'Eating Human Fetuses to Fake Fasting'; 'Swindling the Salt Commissioner While Disguised as Daoists'-are as priceless as anything else produced during the Ming dynasty. -- Peter Hessler, author of <i>Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West</i> [These] individual stories [provide] useful color to Chinese history classes [and provide] good source material for secondary students to act out. -- Peter Gordon * Asian Review of Books * The Book of Swindles deserves a wide reading: its simple stories reveal with stunning accuracy what makes late imperial China so different from today and yet so familiar as well. It may not be the greatest literary work of its time, but it is a social document that is both entertaining and informative. This slim volume will be of tremendous value for teachers and readers for decades to come. -- Robert E. Hegel, Washington University, St. Louis * Ming Studies * This makes the translation a pleasure to read-perhaps even more pleasurable than reading the often workman-like
classical prose of the original. The translation also includes an array of helpful reference materials...could easily be incorporated into a range of undergraduate history and literature classes. -- Ariel Fox * Journal of Asian Studies * The forty-four stories, elegantly translated by Christopher Rea and Bruce Rusk, offer a valuable source for specialists of late imperial China, as well as a good read for anyone looking for entertainment. . . . The Book of Swindles has just started to attract scholarly attention in the English-speaking world. I expect it to serve as a significant resource for future studies of late imperial Chinese literature, culture, history, law, and society. -- Yinghui Wu * Modern Chinese Literature and Culture * Social historians will find the rich panoply of ordinary life. From whatever academic angle one may read Book of Swindles, the reader will find much of interest-and fun! -- James Grayson, Professor Emeritus, Sheffield University, UK * Folklore * There are fools, the gullible, and the vulnerable in all places and at all times, and that there are always the greedy, the envious, and the malicious who would take advantage of them. To borrow further lessons from different times and cultures, "What fools these mortals be!" and "There is no new thing under the sun." But as a view into the seamy sides of late Ming society, these volumes are invaluable. * Journal of Chinese History *