State Power in China, 900-1325

by Patricia Buckley Ebrey (Editor), Paul Jakov Smith (Editor)

This collection provides new ways to understand how state power was exercised during the overlapping Liao, Song, Jin, and Yuan dynasties. Through a set of case studies, State Power in China, 900-1325 examines large questions concerning dynastic legitimacy, factional strife, the relationship between the literati and the state, and the value of centralization. How was state power exercised? Why did factional strife periodically become ferocious? Which problems did reformers seek to address? Could subordinate groups resist the state? How did politics shape the sources that survive?

The nine essays in this volume explore key elements of state power, ranging from armies, taxes, and imperial patronage to factional struggles, officials' personal networks, and ways to secure control of conquered territory. Drawing on new sources, research methods, and historical perspectives, the contributors illuminate the institutional side of state power while confronting evidence of instability and change―of ways to gain, lose, or exercise power.

Genres: History, China

372 pages, Paperback

Published March 25, 2019

About the author

Patricia Buckley Ebrey is an American historian specializing in cultural and gender issues during the Chinese Song Dynasty. Ebrey obtained her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Chicago in 1968 and her Masters and PhD from Columbia University in 1970 and 1975, respectively. Upon receiving her PhD, Ebrey was hired as visiting assistant professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She became an associate professor in 1982 and a full professor three years later. She is now a professor at the University of Washington.

Ebrey has received a number of awards for her work, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation. Ebery's The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period received the 1995 Levenson Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. Her 2008 work, Accumulating Culture: The Collections of Emperor Huizong, received the Smithsonian Institution's 2010 Shimada Prize for Outstanding Work of East Asian Art History.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Laurence Westwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great set of essays!!

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really enjoying this book as my personal introduction to Imperial Chinese history. My usual field of interest is the early middle ages in Europe, especially its governance. I wanted to broaden those horizons, and I had a vague sense of the differences between Europe and contemporaneous China which interested me.

Wow did I pick the right set of articles to start with! It's fascinating to read about Wang Anshi treating land accumulators and bureaucratic initiative as problems of pay and regulatory incentives - at about the same time the Normans in England were compiling Domesday. The rich historical and philosophical debates had at the time are also explained well and have gotten me a foothold in that new territory.