Women in Early Imperial China (Asia/Pacific/Perspectives) - Softcover

Hinsch, Bret

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0742518728 ISBN 13: 9780742518728

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002

Synopsis

After a long spell of chaos, the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BCE-220 CE) saw the unification of the Chinese Empire under a single ruler, government, and code of law. During this era, changing social and political institutions affected the ways people conceived of womanhood. New ideals were promulgated, and women's lives gradually altered to conform to them. And under the new political system, the rulers' consorts and their families obtained powerful new roles that allowed women unprecedented influence in the highest level of government. Filling a conspicuous gap in the scholarship on both Chinese history and gender studies, this book offers the first sustained history of women in the early imperial era. Drawing on extensive primary and secondary sources in Chinese and Japanese, Bret Hinsch paints a remarkably detailed picture of the distant past. His introductory chapters orient the nonspecialist to early imperial Chinese society; subsequent chapters discuss women's roles from the multiple perspectives of kinship, wealth and work, law, government, learning, ritual, and cosmology. A rich array of line drawings, a Chinese-character glossary, and extensive notes and bibliography enhance the text. Historians and students of gender and early China alike will find this book an invaluable survey of the field.

About this title

About the Author:

Bret Hinsch is professor in the Department of History, Foguang University, Taiwan.

Review:

Hinsch's book, focusing as it does on the complexity of social roles that women play in different social contexts, offers a fresh and different perspective on the life of women in early imperial China. A fitting new addition to the volume of recent scholarship on the status of Chinese women. (China Review International)

Hinsch's lucid framework and thorough bibliography make this the first place to send students writing term papers on Chinese women's history. (Choice)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0742518728
• ISBN 13: 9780742518728
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256