Every general account of the development of Chinese thought makes mention of Tung Chung-shu (195-105 BCE) as one of the pivotal philosophers of the Han. His Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn established the first state-sponsored Confucian orthodoxy, and created a view of the ruler and his role in government that was focal in political discussion for two thousand years. The author has carefully scrutinized this text for authenticity, and her book represents the most systematic account yet of Tung Chung-shu's importance in Chinese philosophy and religion.

To win the approval of China's native elites, Qing China's new Manchu leaders developed an ambitious plan to return Confucianism to civil society by observing laborious and time-consuming mourning rituals, the touchstones of a well-ordered Confucian society. The first to do so in any language, Norman Kutcher's study of mourning looks beneath the rhetoric to demonstrate how the state--unwilling to make the sacrifices that a genuine commitment to proper mourning demanded--quietly but forcefully undermined, not reinvigorated, the Confucian mourning system.

Thomas Buoye examines the impact of large-scale economic change on social conflict in eighteenth-century China. He draws on a large number of documented cases of violent property disputes to recreate the social tensions fostered by the development of property rights, an unprecedented growing population, and the increasing strain on land and resources. This book challenges the "markets" and "moral economy" theories of economic behavior. Applying the theories of Douglass North for the first time to this subject, Buoye uses an institutional framework to understand seemingly irrational economic...