Description
Book SynopsisHow news circulated from the Qing dynasty courtIn the Qing dynasty (16441911), China experienced far greater access to political information than suggested by the blunt measures of control and censorship employed by modern Chinese regimes. A tenuous partnership between the court and the dynamic commercial publishing enterprises of late imperial China enabled the publication of gazettes in a wide range of print and manuscript formats. For both domestic and foreign readers these official gazettes offered vital information about the Qing state and its activities, transmitting state news across a vast empire and beyond. And the most essential window onto Qing politics was the Peking Gazette, a genre that circulated globally over the course of the dynasty. This illuminating study presents a comprehensive history of the Peking Gazette and frames it as the cornerstone of a Qing information policy that, paradoxically, prized both transparency and secrecy. Gazettes gave readers a glimpse into
Trade Review"Emily Mokros’s remarkable book considers changes to gazette publication in the early Qing, the gazette’s place as a vehicle for publicizing information alongside parallel policies of secrecy and censorship, its complex publication history, its varied uses for readers, and its global circulation once excerpted or translated in newspapers in treaty ports and around the world."
* Journal of Asian Studies *
"Qing historians today have long known of the gazettes, but we've not known enough. This solid monograph fills the gaps in our knowledge and contributes to understanding of Qing political culture, its enduring institutions, and the origins of western sinological studies."
* Journal of Chinese History *
