The Class of 1761: Examinations, State, and Elites in Eighteenth-Century China

by Iona D. Man-Cheong

The Class of 1761 reveals the workings of China's imperial examination system from the unique perspective of a single graduating class. The author follows the students' struggles in negotiating the examination system along with bureaucratic intrigue and intellectual conflict, as well as their careers across the Empire―to the battlefields of imperial expansion in Annam and Tibet, the archives where the glories of the empire were compiled, and back to the chambers where they in turn became examiners for the next generation of aspirants. The book explores the rigors and flexibilities of the examination system as it disciplined men for political life and shows how the system legitimated both the Manchu throne and the majority non-Manchu elite. In the system's intricately articulated networks, we discern the stability of the Qing empire and the fault lines that would grow to destabilize it.

Genres: History

312 pages, Hardcover

First published August 12, 2004

About the author

Iona Man-Cheong is associate professor of history at Stony Brook University.

Reviews

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very informative look into the imperial examination system in the heyday of the Qing dynasty and the ways in which the minority Manchu occupiers cultivated specific cultural, ideological, and bureaucratic ideals in the students who would end up serving the nation-- by directly steeping them in traditional Confucian sociopolitical theory, through the calculated stochasticism of the convoluted examination process, and in the way this repurposed framework served as a stage on which the hopeful future intellectual elite could perform acts of individualization while further reinforcing their commitments and obligations toward emperor and state. This book was pretty academic, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone without at least a decent grasp of Imperial Chinese history in general and the tradition of imperial examinations in particular. While I found most of the book fairly approachable, even without a ton of background information, the author did on a few occasions repeatedly use conceptual terms that they apparently assumed anyone reading this sort of work would know but which are obscure enough to be impossible to look up briefly online, which was pretty frustrating.

I'm still a bit upset about Zhao Yi-- he seemed to clearly be the most lucid and knowledgeable of the top three candidates (the author spends a chapter comparing their palace examination essays, which is probably the most fun part of the book narratively), but was shunted into third place because of factors out of his control. Not only that, but he knew that multiple of the examiners grading his palace essay, for whom he worked directly as a Grand Council clerk, would make sure he didn't rank in the top three out of concern for his career and worried about accusations of nepotism. Since the names of all of the candidates were covered with wax until the top ten essays, having been ranked by these examiners, were brought to the emperor for a final evaluation, Zhao knew the examiners would only be able to recognize him by his calligraphy, with which they were familiar. He decides this is ridiculous, and straight up changes his handwriting completely, such that the examiners aren't able to tell which is his, and then gets first place only to have the emperor switch him with the third-place candidate because someone complained about imperial anti-nepotism measures at just the wrong time. Brutal stuff.

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an advanced book about the Confucian examination system in Qianlong China. The author describes the system, analyzes the questions and published best answers of the palace exam of 1761, elaborates on a grading conflict-of-interest scandal of that year, and follows the later careers of several graduates. It is a knowledgeable tour de force.

The book is very heavy on theory, and some of the theoretical speculations are as excruciating as the examination system itself. Try to read it and memorize large sections of it in the course of several freezing days and nights in a cubicle open to the elements at a candlelight to get closer to an authentic Confucian examination experience. If you succeed, you will get 1-in-10 chance of an official appointment in Honduras jungle. More seriously, it is true that Qing China was a proto-Orwellian state and theorizing about the meaning of its social functions is not useless. There is just too much of it here; for this reader at least, with his youth spent in former Soviet block, the author is expounding on things that are often quite obvious.

The book requires great familiarity with Chinese historical geography and general circumstances of the Qing empire. Even at least passing interest in Chinese classics is expected. It is not an easy book to read.