Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Forming the Early Chinese Court will be an informative and thought-provoking read not only to more specialized readers already acquainted with aspects of Han political culture, but also to students of Han government and the bureaucracy in Chinese history more generally."
* China Review International: A Journal of Reviews of Scholarly Literature in Chinese Studies *
"Habberstad approaches the “court” not as a thing . . . but as a complex set of evolving relations. The result is an adventurous account of the history of the Han that brings to light heretofore little-noted conversations, contention, and anxiety that were very much constitutive of the history of the Han empire."
* Journal of Chinese History *
"Habberstad should be congratulated for his book. Scholars of early Han history will surely benefit from his manifold astute observations."
* Journal of the American Oriental Society (JAOS) *
"Forming the Early Chinese Court is an original, lucid, and insightful consideration of developments in Western Han governance."
* Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies *
"[P]roduced with great care and reads well, with interesting descriptions of the interconnection between sumptuary regulations and rank and the togetherness of imperial living quarters, audience halls, amusement parks, and official workspace. The book is an important contribution to the study of Chinese early imperial history."
* Religious Studies Review *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Chronology of Dynasties and Han Reign Periods
Introduction: Forming the Early Chinese Court
Part One | Rituals
1. Sumptuary Regulations and the Rhetoric of Equivalency
2. Who Gets to Praise the Emperor?
Part Two | Spaces
3. Parks, Palaces, and Prestige
Part Three | Roles
4. Politics, Rank, and Duty in Institutional Change
5. The Literary Invention of Bureaucracy
Conclusion
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
