The Making of a New Rural Order in South China: Volume 1, Village, Land, and Lineage in Huizhou, 900–1600

Joseph P. McDermott

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781107046221
• eBook ISBN:
  9781107597518
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia dell'Asia

Among the large caches of private documents discovered and collected in China, few rival the Huizhou sources for the insight they provide into Chinese local society and economy over the past millennium. Having spent decades researching these exceptionally rich sources, Joseph P. McDermott presents in two volumes his findings about the major social and economic changes in this important prefecture of south China from around 900 to 1700. In this first volume, we learn about village settlement, competition among village religious institutions, premodern agricultural production, the management of land and lineage, the rise of the lineage as the dominant institution, and its members' application of commercial practices to local forestry operations. This landmark study of religious life and economic activity, of lineage and land, and of rural residents and urban commercial practices provides a compelling new framework for understanding a distinctive path of economic and social development for premodern China and beyond.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Map
• Chart
• Ming weights and measures
• Introduction
• 1 Village institutions in the Song and Yuan
• 2 Large communal families and lineages: kinship and property in the Song and Yuan
• 3 Village institutions in the early and mid Ming
• 4 Lineage trusts: success and adversity
• 5 Lineage trusts: reforms and their aftermath
• 6 Timber futures
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index