Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines major areas of late imperial Chinese culture, and their relation to Chinese culture today, focusing on the competence and sophistication of ordinary people.
The work provides an overview of late imperial society and its responses to forces for change. Its ethnographically rich treatment of changes in family life under Communist rule is based on the author''s fieldwork. Kinship beyond the family is treated through comparisons of the author''s fieldwork sites in China and Taiwan. In dealing with the use of contracts and commodification within one community setting, it illuminates the broader economic culture of late imperial China. This book powerfully confirms that China''s modernity has deep roots in its own tradition, and in doing so offers an excellent introduction to the anthropological view of China.
Trade Review"A splendidly useful and revealing collection... a splendid summary of some of Cohen's best and most significant contributions to Chinese anthropology." --
The China JournalTable of ContentsContents Preface 000 Introduction 000 SECTION I: Late Imperial China and Its Legacies 1. Introduction to Arthur H. Smith's Village Life in China 000 2. Being Chinese: The Peripheralization of Traditional Identity 000 3. Cultural and Political Inventions in Modern China: The Case of the Chinese "Peasant" 000 SECTION II: The Family 4. North China Rural Families: Changes During the Communist Era 000 SECTION III: Lineage Studies 5. Lineage Development and the Family in China 000 6. Lineage Organization in North China 000 7. Lineage Organization in East China 000 SECTION IV: Historical Anthropology: The Minong Community During Qing 8. Commodity Creation in Late Imperial China 000 9. Writs of Passage in Late Imperial China: Contracts and the Documentation of Practical Understandings in Minong, Taiwan 000 Character List 000 Bibliography 000 Index 000
