The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China

by Timothy Brook

The Ming dynasty was the last great Chinese dynasty before the Manchu conquest in 1644. During that time, China, not Europe, was the center of the world: the European voyages of exploration were searching not just for new lands but also for new trade routes to the Far East. In this book, Timothy Brook eloquently narrates the changing landscape of life over the three centuries of the Ming (1368-1644), when China was transformed from a closely administered agrarian realm into a place of commercial profits and intense competition for status.

The Confusions of Pleasure marks a significant departure from the conventional ways in which Chinese history has been written. Rather than recounting the Ming dynasty in a series of political events and philosophical achievements, it narrates this longue durée in terms of the habits and strains of everyday life. Peppered with stories of real people and their negotiations of a rapidly changing world, this book provides a new way of seeing the Ming dynasty that not only contributes to the scholarly understanding of the period but also provides an entertaining and accessible introduction to Chinese history for anyone.

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction, Economics, Cultural

348 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Timothy James Brook is a Canadian historian, sinologist, and writer specializing in the study of China (sinology). He holds the Republic of China Chair, Department of History, University of British Columbia.

His research interests include the social and cultural history of the Ming Dynasty in China; law and punishment in Imperial China; collaboration during Japan's wartime occupation of China, 1937–45 and war crimes trials in Asia; global history; and historiography.

Reviews

[Rowland Pasaribu · Rating 3 out of 5]

The founder of the Ming dynasty, the Hongwu emperor, came from a peasant background and idealised autonomous, self-sufficient agrarian communities; the dynasty he founded, however, was to oversee the economic transformation of China. Timothy Brook's study of this in The Confusions of Pleasure is more a cultural than an economic history, focusing on changing attitudes to trade and commerce and their effects on everyday life. It is an engaging exploration of the nooks and crannies of Ming society.

Brook takes his framework from Zhang Tao, a minor official and moralist who wrote around 1600. Zhang saw the Ming dynasty as a progression from an ideal of self-sufficient rural communities to commercial decadence, which he fitted into a cyclic seasonal pattern. This is used for the chronological division of The Confusions of Pleasure: Winter, Spring, and Summer each cover roughly a century and Fall the final years of the Ming. Zhang Tao's is obviously a literary view, but Brook tries to present non-elite stories and perspectives as well, not just those of emperors and scholars: women, bandits, workers and many others feature.

From the inscriptions on a brick in Nanjing Brook teases out something of the life of kilnmaster Lu Li and the workings of the lijia registration system. To illustrate the workings of the post and courier systems, he describes the conveyance of a Persian embassy in 1420-22 and of shipwrecked Korean sailors in 1488. "Winter" (1368-1450) goes on to look at literacy (using personal journals and land contracts) and printing, at the role of the state in the regulation of commerce and the food supply, and at merchants, markets and luxury goods. It concludes with the gap between rich and poor and the rebellion of Deng Maoqi in Fujian in 1448-49, suggesting that "the nature of the landlord-tenant relationship was changing as commerce and the need for silver grew".

"Spring" (1450-1550) saw a "retreat of the center"; here Brook looks at prefect Xu Jie and the administration of Wuhu, the problem of vagrants and the mass avoidance of registration, especially by women, and the failure of the state to respond to famines. The new ideas of Qiu Jin illustrate an increasingly positive view of markets and merchants — and this was a period when both textile industries and maritime trade boomed. Though commerce was never systematically encouraged, neither was it actively hindered for the most part (bans on foreign trade notwithstanding): claims about "a rapacious and anticommercial Ming state thwarting the growth of the commercial economy seem forced".

The lives of Huizhou merchants illustrate the gentrification of merchants and the increasing role of commerce in the lives of the gentry, underpinning connoisseurship of antiquities and fine living and, through printing, scholarship and the dissemination of knowledge. Many moralists saw the Zhengde reign as a period of decay, idealising the past, and indeed "the moral register of status had been replaced by an economic register as conspicuous consumption removed the patina of polite elegance from wealth".

"Summer" (1550-1644) saw conspicuous consumption in the dedication of massive metal buddhas — and their theft or confiscation for their copper, which was used for coins. Communications and mobility improved, with the spread of printing, news, and letters and an increase in private travel for pilgrimages, business and pleasure. Brook touches on debates over the textile industry's role in the development of capitalism and differences between China and Europe. He covers trade, merchants, and merchant values. And he describes fashions in clothing, collectibles, and sex (courtesans and pederasty) and the "floating world" of Hangzhou. The sources used in this section include the "Family Instructions" of a Miao lineage, an astrological almanac, and travel writings and route books.

In a short "Fall" (1642-1644) Brook describes the careers of two gentry during the Ming-Qing transition, whose survival was assisted by commercial skills and networks. Characters from four stories in Li Le's commonplace book offer additional perspectives on the late Ming. And The Confusions of Pleasure ends with Zhang Tao's final years and the limitations of his analysis of the Ming dynasty.

The Confusions of Pleasure tackles a broad canvas using a fascinating variety of sources. The result is in some ways scattered, but individual sections cohere and the overall effect is that of a mosaic, a multi-faceted picture of Ming China. The independence of individual sections also makes for easy reading and with Brook's lively prose (and a small but helpful selection of woodcuts from the period) the result is a book that may appeal even to those with no knowledge of the period. The Confusions of Pleasure will be a gold-mine for those curious about the historical underpinnings of Chinese commercial traditions — and the gap between the ideology and the reality of economic life under the Ming is reminiscent of modern China — but is recommended to anyone curious about other ways of viewing the world.

[MIL]

自黃仁宇以來
讀了些西方漢學家的書
每個人的風格都差好多啊
不過真正能看見中文風格的
只有把寫好的英文書重新再用中文寫一遍的黃仁宇而已(強者!!)
所以也許是被譯文誤導了也說不定
這本書
看到近世中國的困惑
從黃仁宇的概念來看
中國重農輕商有地理天候的背景
但是明末以降的商業活動又在中央政府無可奈何之下
在限度之內蓬勃發展
造成了許多士紳觀念的困惑與痛苦
從明亡到清末
這種困惑一直延續不斷
今日的我們
看見那些富可敵國的富商
不知是否仍有當日困惑的遺緒呢?

[马尔马拉海的鱼 · Rating 4 out of 5]

it shows a different picture of business in the Ming Dynasty from the textbook.Taking the four seasons as a clue to connect the book is really interesting.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Confusions of Pleasures by Timothy Brook asks: what is pleasure for Confucians? Brook was trained in English literature at the University of Toronto, completed a master’s in East Asia Regional Studies at Harvard University, and then a PhD in East Asian Languages and History under the tutelage of Philip A. Kuhn. Other research by Brook examines inter-polity relations and connects China’s presence in the world. Notable recent works include: Completing the Map of the World: Cartographic Interaction between China and Europe (2020), Great State: China and the world (2019), Sacred Mandates: Asian International Relations since Chinggis Khan (2018). The Confusions of Pleasures, published in 1998, is among his earlier works that focus on the inner workings of Ming China, including Culture and Economy: The Shaping of Capitalism in Eastern Asia (1997), Civil Society in China (1997), and China and Historical Capitalism: Genealogies of Sinological Knowledge (1999). This book embraces Brook’s literary training and melds a dialogue with the editor of a gazetteer to weigh in on Confucian morals, commerce, and social status in Ming dynasty China (1368-1644).
Brook challenges the trope that the rising merchant class broke the social hierarchy that protected the gentry, therefore dismantled the stability of the last dynasty of China for the elite. Brook unfolds his thesis through engaging with Zhang Tao, a county magistrate of Sheh county, south of Nanjing, who penned the local gazetteer that was launched in 1609. Utilizing microhistory, the book fosters empathy for the gentry class seduced by conspicuous consumption that is fueled by silver and merchants through vivid and meticulous details. However, Brook confronts Zhang’s assertions by revealing that the gentry class survived interdynastic conflict through keeping up appearances (P. 206) and the liquidity of silver enabled gentry to capture commercial opportunities for survival (P.210), therefore the compression of social hierarchy strengthened rather than weakened the gentry’s power (P. 212). The thrust of the argument is made at the end of the book, which illustrates the continuity and “fixity” of gentry power relative to merchants as they successfully adapted to maintain their position “in a commercial economy, [where] the reality of elite status is that rungs on the ladder break easily” (P. 216). Thus, the gentry class perpetuated an image of adherence to Confucian morals in order to capitalize on soft power and connections inaccessible to non-gentry. The outward projection creates confusion and tension because while valuing hierarchy, morals, and ritual, the gentry class must now collaborate with the once disdained merchant class, succumb to bribery (P. 114), and use funerals as theatrics to “buy status and set the wealthy apart” (P. 135). The strain on the gentry’s identity is captured by the story of a bondservant who dismissed a gentleman’s complaint as he sat in a position that appears to be superior: “You’re getting all the breeze you want, why fuss if I happen to be sitting in the master’s place and you in the servants?” (P. 213). In essence, a trade off had to be made between Confucian values that offered psychological pleasure for adhering to a collective imagination and economic success that offered physical pleasure as well as psychological pleasure from pursuing individual desires.
The book contains four chapters: winter (1368-1450), spring (1450-1550), summer (1550-1644), and autumn (1642-1644). By organizing based on the seasons as a metaphor it frames each chapter in a standard plot arc of set up, rising action, climax, and falling action, but also mirrors the cyclical tendencies of Chinese dynasties. However, Brook clarifies the allusion to cyclic structure does not reflect Zhang Tao’s interpretation when evoking the seasons, because “they knew nothing of centuries (their larger unit for time reckoning was the sixty-year cycle),” thus Zhang did not consider cycles beyond his dynasty (Pp. 29-30). The artistic flare may potentially weaken Brook’s argument if the reader must restrain oneself from fitting Ming reality into Brook’s beguiling cyclical rebuttal against Zhang’s diatribe against commerce and decline of morals. The modern retrospective gaze cast upon Zhang minimizes his concerns, just as future historians may diminish today’s concerns about Trump, the orange lord of misinformation, on the institutions of democracy. It is only with hindsight that the larger cycle appears, but Zhang would not know if the gentry will survive in his day. Brooks thus puts words into Zhang’s mouth when he ends the book “perhaps Zhang was right: not to argue that commerce was evil and that China should revert to the wintery order of Emperor Hongwu, but to hope that the seasons would turn again, and in turning, reinstate the conservative values of patriarchy, hierarchy, and ruling-class justice that have sustained China’s social structure well beyond the Ming” (P. 218). The conclusion is baffling if Zhang has no perception of macrodynamics as Brook pointed out in the introduction. The choice of a cyclical season framework caused Brook to talk past Zhang instead of directly engaging in a “dialogue” (P. 27) on the concern of rupture, which centers on the future’s lack of antiquity, rather than decline, which assumes “cultural continuity throughout history” (Bol, P. 246). Brook admits the metaphor’s moral chronology is a common commodity among elite musings, such as Gu Yanwu (1613-1682), but reaches opposite conclusions (P. 211).
If the literary metaphor takes precedence over the overall concluding analysis, one must question whether each building block’s seasonal arcs were also constructed to fit Brook’s aesthetics rather than factual evidence. In the “winter” (1368-1450), the emphasis on Hongwu’s goal to immobilize his subjects (P. 34) is supported by anecdotes of wall building, traffic control, lijia system and careful census. However, Dardess in “Did the Mongols Matter” argues that several generations of officials of literati in the Song and Jin were necessary to form a “self-sustaining” and “self conscious” class (P. 128-9). In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang’s “warlord regime” was founded on “autocratic ideals” as a negative response to the Yuan (Dardess, P. 133); the same ideals were “invoked at many moments of crisis, as in 1468, 1519, 1525, and in the Donglin upheavals of 1620s” (Dardess, P. 133). Therefore, the “winter” of 82 years may also be reframed as feverish activity by the first several generations of gentry and merchants to establish their power base, which Brook casts as the “fall” season, when “[the year] 1644 wound the strands of the educated and moneyed elites more tightly together” (Brook, P.212). Furthermore, as a reactive response to the instability of Yuan, the elites of Ming may have counteracted in the opposite direction with forceful implementation of stability, but certainly not the inertia and complacency portrayed as a “winter of content” (Brook, P.34).
Apart from the flowery framework’s weakness in coherence with the broader historiography to transition from Yuan dynasty, Brook’s overarching thesis to refute Zhang Tao’s “attack” on commerce with “extreme tones” (Brook, P. 27) could have benefited from including analysis of literati peers that fomented local activism against the “imperial apparatus” (Bol, P. 283). The integration of Neo-Confucianism with the power of the state caused “the scion of a prominent literati family determined to restore its marginality” (Bol, P. 272), therefore the threat to traditional values came not only from the merchant class but within the gentry. The tension would cause real confusion among Confucians. The contribution of the book is perhaps not in establishing gentry’s role as “the ideological pillar of authoritarianism and elite resistance to change,” which is an unexceptional construct (Bol, P. 241), but the dramatic use of a man’s public writings to add nuance and mixed feelings toward the uneven acceptance of the commerce’s importance in daily life. It created empathy that allowed the reader to step into the shoes of Ming gentry class, as it had done in the preface with a humorous anecdote about Jean Nicolet’s misadventures. Similar to the anecdote, the book was pleasant to read, well paced with a well constructed plot. However, I don’t think the main characters would have been content with Brook’s portrayal of them as the negative example, given their historical circumstances.

[Annika · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Confusions of Pleasure details the economic history of Ming China and how (elite) culture's views of commerce and merchants evolved. Brook assumes a fair amount of knowledge regarding Chinese history and culture, especially civil service exams and Confucian and Buddhist practices and values. If, like me, you have no background in Chinese history, you will be spending a lot of time googling concepts (but you'll learn a ton and go down a lot of rabbit holes!). Since I lack any larger context, I didn't really come away with a clear understanding of how this fits into the broader historiography of Chinese history or whether I find his arguments convincing. However, the book is still accessible to any reader and a fascinating read. Brook intersperses the drier economic bits with anecdotes from travel writing and memoirs filled with amusing harangues about "the decay of culture" and nostalgic paeans to the wonders of the perfect, utterly imaginary past.

[Vathek · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a learned but ill-planned tract. The author continually undercuts his narrative of development (agrarianism to commerce) by questioning and qualifying his insufficient sources. One gets the impression that nothing particularly interesting happened during the Ming. Perhaps it is bad taste to complain of a lack of "human interest", but a cultural history of Ming China which makes hardly any mention of Li Zhi, Wang Yangming, or the Great Novels makes for disappointing reading. There is value to be extracted from the book - the processes and ideologies sketched therein have a great suggestive power - but it is not seized upon by the author. The division of the book into seasons is a representative defect: Brook admits that there is no reason to quadrisect the Ming, and he cannot completely follow up on the scheme anyway, yet still he does it for no particular reason. Shameful display!

[he chow · Rating 4 out of 5]

我喜歡卜正民的問題意識，我不喜歡他的萬花鏡的敘事方式。
這本書和謝和耐的《蒙元入侵前夜》異曲同工之妙，
大抵謝和耐老人家寫宋朝社會，他老人家補上明朝社會的全貌。
他有尖銳的問題意識，他知道答案他不說，交付給讀者的智商判斷。
這點我還蠻討厭的，我習慣了老前輩漢學家直接砸結論的那種冒犯性建構方式，有種一對一決鬥的戰鬥姿態；他老人家的油滑柔軟姿態，感覺因為陰陽怪氣的潛力而多了另一種意義上的輕蔑與侮辱，屬於普通讀者已經沒有辯論的資格，只有大家禮貌交談的份。
一般讀者覺得他的書好讀，因為他不與任何奇美拉戰鬥。
他直接放棄戰鬥的原因，可能（1）他的自尊心在羅馬史那一方，從來是英雄人物支配歷史，沒有烏合之眾多少話語權和用武之地；（2）他懶得和不堪入流的中國菁英階級（士大夫之類的知識分子）來爭辯他們的世界觀有多不正確，他感到厭倦和疲乏到連諷刺都不高興，就這群近視的中國人坐在家裡等著六艘歐洲來的大船賣給中國人38421副眼鏡；（3）唯一能提起他老人家一點戰鬥慾望的是日本漢學家，他高興來論證一下對方的觀點是對的是錯的對了幾分錯了幾分說明他好不容易得到了一點指教的飢渴。而這些，新中國籍貫的中國歷史學家是沒有這種對話資格的。

這種放棄了的態度，我也知道，中國菁英不承認且不承擔對社會負責的任何責任與態度。
他一個外國人還有什麼好說的呃。
他接受的正統歷史觀，就是英雄領導者領導歷史，承擔責任，決定歷史路徑的正確方向與階級地位全盤的不墮落。所以每個英雄都有一套嘴砲是說服得了人的。因為他作為統治者是一定會為了這套嘴砲而去死在他該死的地方的。
至於士大夫，搞不清楚狀況是一回事，他們真誠地欺騙自己，欺騙別人，欺騙社會，他們怎麼對待自己「近視」這件事就足夠滑稽可笑了。還先天下之憂而憂，後天下之樂而樂，朝鮮人分明看到他們開開心心地被解僱坐轎子衣錦還鄉了。解脫他們的天下責任是他們最大的幸福啊～

這樣。這樣。這樣。
造就出來今天漢學家對中國的這般文質彬彬的面貌來。

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intro to Ming social history for advanced undergrads or grad students, with a focus on the Ming economy. Not at all technical in economics, but very entertaining and readable

[Sf9088 · Rating 3 out of 5]

与《金瓶梅》同看，明代交通建设这么给力……小人物的史料真好看，士绅阶层的很多言论今天还屡见不鲜。

[Shushi · Rating 5 out of 5]

作者组织史料，以一种较为有趣的叙述方式展示了明朝的商业社会是如何在将近300年的跨度里发展起来的。

[Sofie S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting book and well written, but sometimes difficult to follow and a lot of Ming policies and principles were not fully developed, I found.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The rise of commerce during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) brought with it the rise of private wealth and the status of merchants. This was quite alarming to many; Confucius had taught that the four classes of society were (from top to bottom): literati, peasants (who earned their high status by farming the land), military, and way down at the bottom, merchants. During the Ming, however, elitist scholars could turn into rich merchants, and land-owning peasants could take on the lifestyle and accessories of members of the court

Author Brook traces this evolution, its sources, repercussions and outcomes, but in the end concludes: "However thoroughly commerce had replaced paternalism and deference with a wage relationship, or however well some individuals managed to step over social barriers and move up the social ladder, or however deeply the successful were troubled as standards and distinctions seemed to dissolve beneath them, the class system of overlordship and deference that held the Chinese world together at the beginning of the Ming was still there at the end" (p. 260).

The stories of who, what, when and how are to be found in the preceding pages, and explain many aspects of Chinese society that one may have wondered about elsewise--for example, why certain luxury goods were considered 'collectibles' by some and 'unworthy' by others, why fashions changed in clothing, in art, etc., and the dynastic transition to "the gentry-merchant fusion of the Qing" (p. 262).

Readers will be introduced to Zhang Tao, a minor official in 1609 (near the end of the Ming) who fretted: "Those who enriched themselves through trade became the majority, and those who enriched themselves through agriculture were few. The rich became richer and the poor, poorer."

Brook's writing and stories are always enjoyable and colourful ("...as he sat at his desk putting his papers in order to the whine of summer cicadas...") and the woodcuts at the beginning of each chapter and throughout, delightful additions, but I found myself wondering over the book's potential readership. It is neither academic, nor entirely general reader-friendly. It assumes a fair amount of background concerning China (dynasties, philosophy, political structure) yet has enough anecdotes to move readers along through the slower bits. But for anyone wondering how scholar and merchant would find themselves sitting at the same banquet table one day, this is a good place to start.

[Ying Yi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Selected some parts from my book review assignment:
From a brick in the wall, to transportations used for private travel, to the fashion business in Hangzhou, Brook cleverly sews his “Encyclopedia of Ming (non-elite version)” together with case studies on individual minor figures: gentries, local officials, merchants, kilnmasters, bandits, women… Most of the fields and people introduced were buried by the wave of history, but Brook dug them out and composed a beautiful symphony. The way that Brook combined both macro-and microhistory perspectives, effortlessly merging individual human experience with abstract historical forces, is indeed impressive and makes this book so unique among other scholars' inquires on Ming history. If reading the traditional narration could be compared to listening to the decree of the emperor, reading this book is more like crossing the crowded street while observing the colorful folklife under the Ming Dynasty myself.
The Confusions of Pleasure reminds me of Zhang Zeduan’s masterpiece, Qingming Shanghe Tu (清明上河图, Along the River During the Qingming Festival): tension and anxiety are quietly simmering underneath the dazzling “floating world” filled with unprecedented wealth and lust. In the Preface, Brook says that this book is inspired by his personal experience in Shanghai back in the 1980s, after witnessing how close the post-Mao Chinese society resembled that of the late Ming. This is nonetheless applicable to today’s China, where conservative moral values could no longer sustain the new social structure swayed by economic profits. There’s no new thing under the sun.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and fascinatingly organized, novelistic almost. Zhang Tao near the end of the Ming complains that things were better at the beginning of the Ming, and commerce is the culprit. Zhang Tao is the unreliable narrator, and the reader is made to follow his lead into a brick wall.

In a nutshell, the book tracks changes in elite ideologies about commerce over the Ming period alongside providing an economic and institutional history of the period. On the one hand, the multitude of voices we hear from the period tell us what they see, think, and feel about what the bustle, the "confusions," the "pleasures" they register around them. But only Brook, from 1998's Toronto, can triangulate among the views of these various witnesses to show what they can't see or don't know is happening. Imperceptibly, the gentry had accommodated themselves to commerce and commercial ways of thinking.

One complaint I have is that whereas the majority of the witnesses made to speak in first three seasons of the book are in the South, the two witnesses who report the Fall of the Ming are Northerners. It made me realize how very little I heard about the North (with the exc. of what the emperors after Yongle were up to in Beijing) in the rest of the work.

I'll have to check out Brook's earlier book on Ming-Qing sources to figure out what kind of sources gazetteers can be constituted as.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book claimed to be a social history rather than an economic history but as such it definitely focused more on the economic aspects of social life. The other disappointing thing about it was that it was nearly all about men's lives. It claimed that there just wasn't enough information about the women to give them equal time within the book. As I've read several books as long as this that focus only on women during the Ming I found this claim a little dubious. That said this was still a good history of the lives of people during the Ming. It also looked at how they changed and how each claim for the previous golden age was probably a mistake based on false information. I read this as background reading for my story and it was full of good insights, particularly looking at Hangzhou and the surrounding region. I ended up taking a lot of notes and am glad I own a copy as it will be a very good book for reference.

[Ross Perlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marrying cultural and economic history, Brook uses fascinating case studies (largely from local gazetteers) to draw out a rich picture of life under the Ming Dynasty. Broadly speaking, he makes the case that increased commercial integration and prosperity produced a cultural efflorescence and a problematic negotiation and questioning of class distinctions. In particular, the rise of the gentry (along with a copper and silver economy) presaged the erosion of Confucian values and merchant-gentry fusion of the Qing.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

China during the Ming had a long peace in which to pursue art and luxury, but this was at odds with the Confucian morality of hard work and frugality and brought with it, a sense that they were slowly being corrupted. The Confucian hierarchy of Scholar, Farmer, Artisan, and Merchant was slowly upset by the vast wealth and power that could obtained by trade and this undermined the ethic of study.

This book alludes to the incredible development of publishing and collecting, which are fascinating.

Ming culture is amazing and I hope there are more studies.

[Britt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brook gives an absolutely fascinating history of Ming China and the rapid commercialization that brought about a new kind of high culture in Chinese society. Class differentiation by means of fashion, the commercialized sex industry, and education (which could include the purchasing of degrees) are all addressed in great detail.

A really rich text. Meticulously researched and written. This is one of my favorites.

[Sean Mccarrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since this book aimed to cover the social and cultural history of the Ming Empire, it was a bit broad. However, I thought it brought up very interesting struggles within Ming society concerning merchant versus scholar etc. I did however find it strange that he said at one point that culture involves what one does but not what they think, but he also discussed the nostalgia factor for the nostalgia of Emperor Hongwu, which seemed to guide the actions of the Ming so strongly.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very fascinating read on the Ming Dynasty. The style in which this is written, using individuals and their stories to explain the dynasty wherever he could, made it a very easy yet enlightening read. He also wasn't afraid of "weird" topics such as young boys as prostitutes and homosexuality.

[!Tæmbuŝu]

KOBOBOOKS

Reviewed by Economic History

[Stephen]

Extremely informative. I had a week to read it, so I don't know how much I got out of it if I consider what I could have gotten from it if I had more time to read it. Methodology and historiography is respected in this book. As an introduction to Ming China, I recommend it.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book - lively, well-researched picture of the social and economic life of Ming China, though probably one for the Sinologues.

[Jessica Zu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A super pleasant read. Recommend as beach reading for nerds XD