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Traces of Grand Peace : Classics and State Activism in Imperial China.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph SeriesPublisher: Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Asia Center, 2015Copyright date: ©2015Edition: 1st edDescription: 1 online resource (453 pages)Content type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9781684170821
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Print version:: Traces of Grand PeaceDDC classification:
  • 951/.024
LOC classification:
  • PL2283 .S664 2015
Online resources:
Contents:
Intro -- Traces of Grand Peace: Classics and State Activism in Imperial China -- Contents -- List of Tables and Figures -- Conventions -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- PART I: WEALTH, POWER, AND LEGITIMACY -- 1. A Brief History of the Zhouli, 200 BC-AD 900 -- 2. The Ascent of the Zhouli before the New Policies -- 3. The Zhouli and Li Gou's Constitutional Agenda -- 4. The Rise of the Zhouli during the New Policies Period -- PART II: BUREAUCRACY AND STATE MANAGEMENT -- 5. The New Learning and the Politics of Etymology -- 6. Premiership and the Principles of Bureaucracy -- 7. The Supreme Ruler and Political Legitimacy -- PART III: ECONOMIC PLANS, SOCIAL ORGANIZATION, AND MORAL SUASION -- 8. Economic Plans and Popular Welfare -- 9. The Realms of Governance and the Methods of Education -- 10. "To Unify Morality and Correct Customs" -- PART IV: POLITICAL VISIONS AND PLANS FOR REFORM IN THE NEW POLICIES PERIOD -- 11. The Political Geography of the Western Zhou -- 12. The Fengjian System in the Zhouli -- 13. The Market, Social Organization, and the Military System -- 14. Taking Back the Zhouli in the Southern Song -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- List of Chinese Characters -- Index -- Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series.
Summary: Since the second century BC the Confucian Classics, endorsed by the successive ruling houses of imperial China, had stood in tension with the statist ideals of "big government." In Northern Song China (960-1127), a group of reform-minded statesmen and thinkers sought to remove the tension between the two by revisiting the highly controversial classic, the Rituals of Zhou: the administrative blueprint of an archaic bureaucratic state with the six ministries of some 370 offices staffed by close to 94,000 men. With their revisionist approaches, they reinvented it as the constitution of state activism. Most importantly, the reform-councilor Wang Anshi's (1021-1086) new commentary on the Rituals of Zhou rose to preeminence during the New Policies period (ca. 1068-1125), only to be swept into the dustbin of history afterward. By reconstructing his revisionist exegesis from its partial remains, this book illuminates the interplay between classics, thinkers, and government in statist reform, and explains why the uneasy marriage between classics and state activism had to fail in imperial China.
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Intro -- Traces of Grand Peace: Classics and State Activism in Imperial China -- Contents -- List of Tables and Figures -- Conventions -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- PART I: WEALTH, POWER, AND LEGITIMACY -- 1. A Brief History of the Zhouli, 200 BC-AD 900 -- 2. The Ascent of the Zhouli before the New Policies -- 3. The Zhouli and Li Gou's Constitutional Agenda -- 4. The Rise of the Zhouli during the New Policies Period -- PART II: BUREAUCRACY AND STATE MANAGEMENT -- 5. The New Learning and the Politics of Etymology -- 6. Premiership and the Principles of Bureaucracy -- 7. The Supreme Ruler and Political Legitimacy -- PART III: ECONOMIC PLANS, SOCIAL ORGANIZATION, AND MORAL SUASION -- 8. Economic Plans and Popular Welfare -- 9. The Realms of Governance and the Methods of Education -- 10. "To Unify Morality and Correct Customs" -- PART IV: POLITICAL VISIONS AND PLANS FOR REFORM IN THE NEW POLICIES PERIOD -- 11. The Political Geography of the Western Zhou -- 12. The Fengjian System in the Zhouli -- 13. The Market, Social Organization, and the Military System -- 14. Taking Back the Zhouli in the Southern Song -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- List of Chinese Characters -- Index -- Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series.

Since the second century BC the Confucian Classics, endorsed by the successive ruling houses of imperial China, had stood in tension with the statist ideals of "big government." In Northern Song China (960-1127), a group of reform-minded statesmen and thinkers sought to remove the tension between the two by revisiting the highly controversial classic, the Rituals of Zhou: the administrative blueprint of an archaic bureaucratic state with the six ministries of some 370 offices staffed by close to 94,000 men. With their revisionist approaches, they reinvented it as the constitution of state activism. Most importantly, the reform-councilor Wang Anshi's (1021-1086) new commentary on the Rituals of Zhou rose to preeminence during the New Policies period (ca. 1068-1125), only to be swept into the dustbin of history afterward. By reconstructing his revisionist exegesis from its partial remains, this book illuminates the interplay between classics, thinkers, and government in statist reform, and explains why the uneasy marriage between classics and state activism had to fail in imperial China.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.

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