The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics and Lineage Discourse - Softcover

Kai-Wing Chow

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804727910 ISBN 13: 9780804727914

Publisher: Stanford University Press, 1996

Synopsis

This pathbreaking work argues that the major intellectual trend in China from the seventeenth through to the early nineteenth century was Confucian ritualism, as expressed in ethics and classical learning.Through the performance of rites, the early Qing scholars believed they could cultivate Confucian virtues and achieve social order. The author shows how Confucian ritualism, with its emphasis on lineage, became a broad movement of social reform that stressed conformity and clearly prescribed rules of behavior, expressed notably in the growing cult of female chastity.

About this title

Review

'Chow's monograph moves ritual to center stage in late imperial social and intellectual history, and the author makes a powerful case for doing so ... Because the author understands the intellectual history of late Ming and Qing as the history of a movement, or successive movements, of fundamental social reform, he has also made an important contribution to social and political history as these were related to intellectual history.' Journal of Chinese Religion

From the Back Cover

"Wide-ranging, exhaustively documented, bold in its interpretations, and attuned simultaneously to questions of intellectual and social history--a rarity in sinological studies--this work will cause a sweeping reassessment of the eighteenth century in modern China's 'Confucian' past. The author's exciting new interpretation of textual scholarship and classical studies both challenges existing theories in modern Chinese intellectual history and adds rich support for new studies of social change at the local level in late imperial times."--Susan Mann, University of California, Davis
"Excellent. . . . Much of Chow's book is devoted to delineating the relationship between scholarly debates on ritual and concrete efforts at lineage building. In this endeavor he pulls together several major strands of recent scholarship on the Ch'ing: work on intellectual trends, elite patterns of dominance, lineage development, ritual, and popular culture."--Journal of Asian Studies

Edition details

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0804727910
• ISBN 13: 9780804727914
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 356