Books in the Harvard East Asian Monographs (HUP) series

Through a close examination of economic trends and case studies of particular families, this study demonstrates that Japan's protoindustrial economy was far more volatile than portrayed in most studies to date. Few rural elites survived the competitive and unstable climate of this era.

Credit for the swift unification of Japan following the 1868 overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate is usually given to the national leaders. Baxter argues that brilliant leadership at the top is not sufficient to explain how regional separatist tendencies and loyalties to the old lords were overcome in the formation of a nationally unified state.

This second edition of Dru Gladney's critically acclaimed study of the Muslim population in China includes a new preface by the author, as well as a valuable addendum to the bibliography, already hailed as one of the most extensive listing of modern sources on the Sino-Muslims.

These journal entries continue the sequence begun in Entering China's Service and cover the years when Hart was setting up Customs procedures, establishing a modus operandi with the Ch'ing bureaucracy, and inspecting the treaty ports. They culminate in Hart's return visit to Europe with the Pinch'un Mission and his marriage in Northern Ireland.

Focusing on the marginal region of Toyama, on the Sea of Japan, the author explores the interplay of central and regional authorities, local and national perceptions of rights, and the emerging political practices in Toyama and Tokyo that became part of the new political culture that took shape in Japan following the Meiji Restoration.

Hyung Il Pai examines how archaeological finds from Northeast Asia have been used in Korea to construct a myth of state formation emphasizing the ancient development of a pure Korean race that created a civilization rivaling those of China and Japan. He shows that the Korean state was formed far later with influences from throughout Northern Asia.

This study of Japan's transformation by the economic crises of the 1930s focuses on efforts to overcome the effects of the Great Depression in rural areas, particularly the activities of local activists and Tokyo policymakers. Smith sheds light on how average Japanese responded to problems of modernization and how they re-created the countryside.

Free trade proponent Ayukawa Yoshisuke (1880-1967) was founder of the Nissan conglomerate and leader of the Manchuria Industrial Development Corporation, a linchpin of Japan's efforts to economically exploit its overseas dependencies. Through exploring the reasons for Ayukawa's failure, Iguchi illuminates many of Japan's current economic problems.

This study links two sets of concerns--the focus of recent studies of the nation on language, culture, education, and race; and the emphasis of diplomatic history on international developments--to show how political, diplomatic, and cultural concerns work together to shape national identity.

In the traditional Chinese symbolic vocabulary, the construction of gender was never far from debates about ritual propriety, desire, and even cosmic harmony. Competing Discourses maps the aesthetic and semantic meanings associated with gender in the Ming-Qing vernacular novel through close readings of five long narratives.

The twelve essays in this volume underscore the similarities between Chinese and American approaches to bilateral diplomacy and between their perceptions of each other's policy-making motivations.

Investigating the late 16th through the 19th century, this work looks at the shifting boundaries between the Choson state and the adherents of Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and popular religions. It counters the static view of the Korean Confucian state and elucidates its relationship to the wider Confucian community and religious groups.

By approaching May Fourth from novel perspectives, the authors of the eight studies in this volume seek to contribute to the ongoing critique of the movement.

Scholars have often taken Shinkokinshu (1205) to represent a nostalgia for greatness presumed to have been lost in the wars of the late 1100s. The author argues that the compilers of this anthology of waka poetry instead saw their collection as a "new" beginning, a revitalization and affirmation of courtly traditions, and not a reaction to loss.

In this comprehensive study of the rhetoric, narrative patterns, and intellectual content of the Zuozhuan and Guoyu, David Schaberg reads these two collections of historical anecdotes as traces of a historiographical practice that flourished around the fourth century BCE among the followers of Confucius.

The authors analyze the social, cultural, and political meaning attached to the cult of Confucius; its history; the legends, images, and rituals associated with it; the power of the descendants of Confucius; the main temple in the birthplace of Confucius; and the contemporary fate of temples to Confucius.

For 1,300 years, Chinese calligraphy was based on the elegant art of Wang Xizhi (A.D. 303-361). But the emergence in the 17th century of a style modeled on the rough, broken epigraphs of ancient artifacts led to the formation of the stele school. Eminent calligrapher and art theorist Fu Shan (1607-1685) was a dominant force in this school.

Despite Taiwan's rise as an economic force in the world, modernity has not led to a Weberian process of disenchantment or curbed religiosity. To the contrary, other factors-social, economic, political-have stimulated religion. How and why this has happened are central issues in this book.

In this history of Japanese involvement in northeast China, the author argues that Japan's military seizure of Manchuria in September 1931 was founded on three decades of infiltration of the area. This incremental empire-building and its effect on Japan are the focuses of this book.

One of the most exciting developments in the study of Chinese literature has been the rediscovery of a rich, diverse tradition of women's writing of the imperial period. This anthology differs from previous works by offering a glimpse of women's writings not only in poetry but in essays and letters, drama, religious writing, and narrative fiction.

Among the most radical of the Meiji reforms was a plan for a centralized, compulsory educational system modeled after those in Europe and America. But with almost no support from the government, local officials, teachers, and citizens pursued alternative visions. Their efforts led to the growth and consolidation of a new educational system.

This book examines the Nanjing decade of Guomindang rule (1927-1937) and the early post-Mao reform era (1980-1992) of Chinese history that have commonly been viewed as periods of state disintegration or retreat. And they were-at the central level. When reexamined at the local level, however, both are revealed as periods of state building.

This book examines the Chinese opium crisis from the perspective of Qing prohibition efforts. The author argues that opium prohibition, and not the opium wars, was genuinely imperial in scale and is hence much more representative of the actual drug problem faced by Qing administrators.

Throughout history, Mount Tai has been a magnet for both women and men from all classes-emperors, aristocrats, officials, literati, and villagers. This book examines the behavior of those who made the pilgrimage to Mount Tai and their interpretations of its sacrality and history, as a means of better understanding their identities and mentalities.