Search results for ""Author Kai-wing Chow""
Stanford University Press Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China
This book is a path-breaking study of print culture in early modern China. It argues that printing with both woodblocks and movable type exerted a profound influence on Chinese society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The book examines the rise and impact of print culture from both economic and cultural perspectives. In economic terms, the central issues were the price of books and the costs of book production. Chow argues that contrary to accepted views, inexpensive books were widely available to a growing literate population. An analysis of the economic and operating advantages of woodblock printing explains why it remained the dominant technology even as the use of movable type was expanding. The cultural focus shows the impact of commercial publishing on the production of literary culture, particularly on the civil service examination. The expansion of the book market produced publicity for literary professionals whose authority came to challenge the authority of the official examiners.
£23.99
Stanford University Press The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics, and Lineage Discourse
This pathbreaking work argues that the major intellectual trend in China from the seventeenth through the early nineteenth century was Confucian ritualism, as expressed in ethics, classical learning, and discourse on lineage. Reviews "Chow has produced a work of superb scholarship, fluently written and beautifully researched. . . . One of the landmarks of the current reconstruction of the social philosophy of the Qing dynasty. . . . Chow's book is indispensable. It has illuminating analyses of many mainstream writers, institutions, and social categories in eighteenth-century China which have never previously been examined." —Canadian Journal of History "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 "Chow's book is an excellent contribution to recent scholarship on the intellectual history of the Confucian tradition and provides a balance for other studies that have emphasized ideas to the exclusion of symbols." —The Historian
£66.60
University of California Press Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China
Despite the importance of books and the written word in Chinese society, the history of the book in China is a topic that has been little explored. This pioneering volume of essays, written by historians, art historians, and literary scholars, introduces the major issues in the social and cultural history of the book in late imperial China. Informed by many insights from the rich literature on the history of the Western book, these essays investigate the relationship between the manuscript and print culture; the emergence of urban and rural publishing centers; the expanding audience for books; the development of niche markets and specialized publishing of fiction, drama, non-Han texts, and genealogies; and more.
£63.90
