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叫魂：1768年中国妖术大恐慌
《叫魂：1768年中国妖术大恐慌》中在中国的千年帝制时代，清高宗弘历可谓是空前绝后的一人，然而在乾隆盛世达到登峰造极的时候，整个大清的政治与社会生活却被一股名为“叫魂”的妖术搅得天昏地暗。在1768年从春天到秋天的那几个月里，这股妖风冲击到了半个中国，百姓为之人心惶惶，官员为之疲于奔命，皇帝为之寝食不宁。在讲述叫魂故事的过程中，《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》重在讨论这背后的历史意蕴。叫魂故事可以帮助我们理解传统中国政治和中国社会的一些基本问题。
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
About the author
Philip A. Kuhn
6 books51 followersPhilip A. Kuhn (Chinese name: simplified Chinese: 孔飞力, 孔复礼; traditional Chinese: 孔飛力, 孔復禮; born September 9, 1933) was an American academic, sinologist and the Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History and of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Emeritus, at Harvard University.
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October 27, 2020
American history professor Philip A. Kuhn, a student of John K. Fairbank wrote this book, a classic in the US and China since it was first published in 1990. Kuhn taught from 1963-1986 at the University of Chicago and Harvard. He was an assiduous scholar of Qing dynasty documents archived in Beijing. Kuhn's work has been considered an outgrowth of Weberian sociology using interpretive rather than empiricist methods of research. Kuhn challenged both the Chinese model of dynastic cycles and the western model of foreign impacts to explain the social evolution of China.
In 1768 traveling monks and beggars were claimed to be drugging and chopping off the ponytails of Qing dynasty subjects. A shaved forehead and braided queue, traditional hairstyle of the Manchu rulers, was required to be worn by all male Chinese on penalty of torture or death. The clipped hair was said to be tied to paper men and horses to create armies of stolen souls. These events had begun in Jiangnan, the lower Yangtze river delta, comprised of southern Jiangsu, northern Jiangxi and Zhejiang, and eastern Anhui. This was the most fertile and wealthy region of the empire.
The Qianlong emperor Hongli reigned in 1735-1796, the 'Prosperous Age' of the Qing dynasty. New types of farming created a population explosion and foreign silver chased tea and silk. Jiangnan was the rice bowl from which produce flowed north along the Grand Canal but the life of a landless peasant was grim. Tenant farmers and state employed laborers shuttled between village and city with inflation and shortages at their heels. Outside this network people lived in abject poverty. A influx of immigrants and refugees alarmed the villages and towns, and were a focus of fear.
Qing rulers struggled to maintain a delicate balance between Manchu ethnic elitism and the appearance of legitimate successors to Confucian traditions of their Han subjects. The assimilation of Han culture and degradation of Manchu military virtue were major concerns. Sorcery emanating from the lower Yangtze river, seat of Han wealth and culture, was perceived as a threat to Manchu rule. The Buddhist and Taoist monks implicated were viewed as rivals to the state run worship of Heaven. Attempts to reign in the widening web of folk religion would prove elusive.
Reports of queue clipping spread to Shandong and Shanxi, ancient seats of imperial military power, from the culturally sophisticated south. The Qing legal code held punishments for sorcery from the Tang code of 653. There was a long standing mistrust of religious affiliations. In 1355 a rebellion against Mongol rule was led by a former Buddhist monk who became the first emperor of the Ming dynasty. The Qianlong emperor may not have believed in sorcery but he did fear substantial threats from insurrection. Convictions would result in execution, usually by decapitation.
The emperor, now alerted to soul stealing sorcery, began to hector his representatives in Jiangnan. Provincial governors had been loathe to report unrest in their jurisdictions. A campaign was begun to eradicate the scourge, led by the grandees who had hidden cases before. Hongli suspected a rebellion afoot. If the dynasty lost the mandate of Heaven all might be lost. Rumors multiplied and a mass hysteria took hold. False accusations, coerced confessions and popular beliefs bred panic like 17th century European witch hunts. Was this a conspiracy to overthrow the empire?
As here uncovered it was a hoax invented by impoverished monks and competing laborers perpetrated to defame rival monasteries and contractors. Local bureaucrats resisted prosecutions until under pressure from a monarchy afraid of sedition. This left the matter of unwinding the investigation and saving face for the emperor. Low level officials were cashiered and a high level governor demoted. The beggars and monks who had survived arrest and torture were let go. Kuhn closes with a review of power relations between a despotic autocracy and an expert bureaucracy.
This book is interesting in several ways. Kuhn shows that a social context may be extrapolated from a narrow set of incidents and scholarly research can be written convincingly without complicating events. He interprets metaphor as the south steals power from the north by cutting off the symbol of Manchu rule. The book may evoke a Grimms' fairytale depicting an earlier age of Chinese superstition at a time when western enlightenment was in full bloom. It more clearly demonstrates that the real life forces at work may not have been so different from those today.
In 1768 traveling monks and beggars were claimed to be drugging and chopping off the ponytails of Qing dynasty subjects. A shaved forehead and braided queue, traditional hairstyle of the Manchu rulers, was required to be worn by all male Chinese on penalty of torture or death. The clipped hair was said to be tied to paper men and horses to create armies of stolen souls. These events had begun in Jiangnan, the lower Yangtze river delta, comprised of southern Jiangsu, northern Jiangxi and Zhejiang, and eastern Anhui. This was the most fertile and wealthy region of the empire.
The Qianlong emperor Hongli reigned in 1735-1796, the 'Prosperous Age' of the Qing dynasty. New types of farming created a population explosion and foreign silver chased tea and silk. Jiangnan was the rice bowl from which produce flowed north along the Grand Canal but the life of a landless peasant was grim. Tenant farmers and state employed laborers shuttled between village and city with inflation and shortages at their heels. Outside this network people lived in abject poverty. A influx of immigrants and refugees alarmed the villages and towns, and were a focus of fear.
Qing rulers struggled to maintain a delicate balance between Manchu ethnic elitism and the appearance of legitimate successors to Confucian traditions of their Han subjects. The assimilation of Han culture and degradation of Manchu military virtue were major concerns. Sorcery emanating from the lower Yangtze river, seat of Han wealth and culture, was perceived as a threat to Manchu rule. The Buddhist and Taoist monks implicated were viewed as rivals to the state run worship of Heaven. Attempts to reign in the widening web of folk religion would prove elusive.
Reports of queue clipping spread to Shandong and Shanxi, ancient seats of imperial military power, from the culturally sophisticated south. The Qing legal code held punishments for sorcery from the Tang code of 653. There was a long standing mistrust of religious affiliations. In 1355 a rebellion against Mongol rule was led by a former Buddhist monk who became the first emperor of the Ming dynasty. The Qianlong emperor may not have believed in sorcery but he did fear substantial threats from insurrection. Convictions would result in execution, usually by decapitation.
The emperor, now alerted to soul stealing sorcery, began to hector his representatives in Jiangnan. Provincial governors had been loathe to report unrest in their jurisdictions. A campaign was begun to eradicate the scourge, led by the grandees who had hidden cases before. Hongli suspected a rebellion afoot. If the dynasty lost the mandate of Heaven all might be lost. Rumors multiplied and a mass hysteria took hold. False accusations, coerced confessions and popular beliefs bred panic like 17th century European witch hunts. Was this a conspiracy to overthrow the empire?
As here uncovered it was a hoax invented by impoverished monks and competing laborers perpetrated to defame rival monasteries and contractors. Local bureaucrats resisted prosecutions until under pressure from a monarchy afraid of sedition. This left the matter of unwinding the investigation and saving face for the emperor. Low level officials were cashiered and a high level governor demoted. The beggars and monks who had survived arrest and torture were let go. Kuhn closes with a review of power relations between a despotic autocracy and an expert bureaucracy.
This book is interesting in several ways. Kuhn shows that a social context may be extrapolated from a narrow set of incidents and scholarly research can be written convincingly without complicating events. He interprets metaphor as the south steals power from the north by cutting off the symbol of Manchu rule. The book may evoke a Grimms' fairytale depicting an earlier age of Chinese superstition at a time when western enlightenment was in full bloom. It more clearly demonstrates that the real life forces at work may not have been so different from those today.
July 29, 2020
[T]he empowerment of ordinary people remains, even now, an unmet promise.
In the field of Chinese history, this is still a well-liked and recommended book. This is a story about mass hysteria and the belief that sorcerers were running around Qing-Dynasty China, snipping off their braids hair, and stealing peoples' souls. Aside from a brief examination of folk beliefs about magic and the supernatural, this is also a story of the functioning of the late Qing Empire and how it addresses domestic crises.
While the book remains well-liked in this domain, it has become something more in China. It still appears as a top seller in online book retailers such as Dangdang, and it has received almost 20,000 ratings on Douban - an equivalent of Goodreads. If you search the word 'history', it is one of the very first books to show up. Why is this?
The first and most obvious reason is that this is simply a fun read. The primary sources - court documents, witness testimonies, and ministers' orders - all read extremely well. These are like a historical crime novel, in between the historian's own look at how this society was run.
The second reason is that this book explores the values and the tensions of this old society. On the one hand, people are panicked and thrown into confusion over the rumors of sorcery; they blame and cast aspersions on each other to survive. The bureaucracy is short-sighted and selfish, and the emperor demands the harshest punitive measures because he is aware of the fragility of his rule, and he sees treason everywhere. Those on the margins - the poor and homeless, especially - are often targets of blame.
A third reason, and one reason that I enjoyed it personally, is the consolation of history. It comes from understanding that mass hysteria, moral panic, and brutal self-interest existed in the past, even if in some different forms, with different effects, and for different reasons. It would be ignorant to assume that this paranoia about magic existed only in China, but it takes on specific characteristics of its time and place. The loss of queues, for example, meant that the imperial government feared that the majority Han were ready to overthrow the Manchus, who had implemented the queue order in the first place.
This is a remarkable bit of history, and one that I find myself thinking about.
In the field of Chinese history, this is still a well-liked and recommended book. This is a story about mass hysteria and the belief that sorcerers were running around Qing-Dynasty China, snipping off their braids hair, and stealing peoples' souls. Aside from a brief examination of folk beliefs about magic and the supernatural, this is also a story of the functioning of the late Qing Empire and how it addresses domestic crises.
While the book remains well-liked in this domain, it has become something more in China. It still appears as a top seller in online book retailers such as Dangdang, and it has received almost 20,000 ratings on Douban - an equivalent of Goodreads. If you search the word 'history', it is one of the very first books to show up. Why is this?
The first and most obvious reason is that this is simply a fun read. The primary sources - court documents, witness testimonies, and ministers' orders - all read extremely well. These are like a historical crime novel, in between the historian's own look at how this society was run.
The second reason is that this book explores the values and the tensions of this old society. On the one hand, people are panicked and thrown into confusion over the rumors of sorcery; they blame and cast aspersions on each other to survive. The bureaucracy is short-sighted and selfish, and the emperor demands the harshest punitive measures because he is aware of the fragility of his rule, and he sees treason everywhere. Those on the margins - the poor and homeless, especially - are often targets of blame.
A third reason, and one reason that I enjoyed it personally, is the consolation of history. It comes from understanding that mass hysteria, moral panic, and brutal self-interest existed in the past, even if in some different forms, with different effects, and for different reasons. It would be ignorant to assume that this paranoia about magic existed only in China, but it takes on specific characteristics of its time and place. The loss of queues, for example, meant that the imperial government feared that the majority Han were ready to overthrow the Manchus, who had implemented the queue order in the first place.
This is a remarkable bit of history, and one that I find myself thinking about.
Did Not Finish
October 30, 2019I'm sorry to say that this one turned out to be too dry for me; it's very much an academic history, though it certainly contains some interesting facts. I was particularly struck by the fact that in 18th century China, if a man wore his hair in a way other than the tonsure and queue prescribed by the Manchu rulers, not only could he be punished, but so could his landlord and neighbors - presumably for not having brought him into line themselves. We tend to talk about Asian societies as being "collectivist" but I hadn't before encountered a concrete example of this being ingrained in law, so that letting one's neighbors alone to mind their business could be quite a dangerous choice. Also, readers should be prepared for descriptions of judicial torture in open court - yikes.
I made it to around page 80.
I made it to around page 80.
July 14, 2016
A decent work of scholarship whose lower rating comes merely from the fact that its specialized nature makes it a bit of a slog for the lay reader. If you come into this expecting a history and discussion on magic n' shit in 18th century China, you might be disappointed. Kuhn focuses on the relationship between monarchic bureaucracies and the Emperor himself, who left a wealth of commentary on cases like this, not the sorcery bits so much, though, frankly, he could've.
The shiz: evil sorcerers were wandering the countryside clipping off the mandatory Manchu ponytails of Chinese men. The Emperor demanded action, fearing sedition, and local officials ass-dragged and wishy-washed about.
Kuhn discusses these cases and delves into the emperor's involvement and why. There's not as much on why people would be running around making this shit up, but I suspect that it might very well have been a political protest of some kind, the then-equivalent of the offensive political bumper sticker. Kuhn briefly address this and then pulls back, choosing instead to focus on weird theories of bureaucratic nuance which is slightly snooze-worthy.
The bits on the actual rumors and events are neat, as is the look into local policing techniques. Plus, Emperor Hungli was a pretty terse, often unintentionally amusing jerkface who didn't buy any of it, making his letters to provincial officials fun to read.
The shiz: evil sorcerers were wandering the countryside clipping off the mandatory Manchu ponytails of Chinese men. The Emperor demanded action, fearing sedition, and local officials ass-dragged and wishy-washed about.
Kuhn discusses these cases and delves into the emperor's involvement and why. There's not as much on why people would be running around making this shit up, but I suspect that it might very well have been a political protest of some kind, the then-equivalent of the offensive political bumper sticker. Kuhn briefly address this and then pulls back, choosing instead to focus on weird theories of bureaucratic nuance which is slightly snooze-worthy.
The bits on the actual rumors and events are neat, as is the look into local policing techniques. Plus, Emperor Hungli was a pretty terse, often unintentionally amusing jerkface who didn't buy any of it, making his letters to provincial officials fun to read.
December 28, 2021
看看人家，再看看自己。什么叫翻翻文献就把一个事情给说透了。
August 21, 2014
I have to say for a book published by Harvard and written by a Harvard professor it was a remarkably easy read. The writing style was very straightforward, delegating most of the more scholarly aspects and references to footnotes and focusing on telling more of a story. His writing style reminded me of Jonathon Spence a little, it was obvious he knew what he was talking about but tried to make it as interesting and accessible as possible.
This book however was not really about the sorcery scare, rather it was about bureaucratic politics of the time and to that end I found it rather disappointing. Having read Ter Har's White Lotus I was hoping for an equaly interesting account of the lives and beliefs of the people involved in the sorcery scare, it's roots, what and why it happened and what this showed about beliefs. While looking into this a little Kuhn focused almost entirely on the Imperial and Bureaucratic implications of the event. When discussing the acts of the soul stealers he focused entirely on the clipping of the queues as a purely physical and political event rather than anything spiritual. He was also very dismissive it seemed of any "superstitious" beliefs or "ghost stories" of the common people. In his mind the bureaucrats and the Emperor were both a step above the common folk in their skepticism of sorcery. He clearly had in his mind a firm separation between beliefs of the local and the elite, which has been brought into question by many of the historians that I have been reading lately.
His focus for the event was how it reflected the distribution of power between the Emperor and his bureaucrats. Which, while informative, was really not what I wanted to read about. He did have one chapter looking at the religious side, and the lives of the people affected. Reading through his footnotes I found myself familiar with all his secoundary sources, except for one Steven Harrell article which I will have to track down as it sounded quite interesting.
His conclusion about the "scare" seemed to be that it was a bureaucratic fear that was simply a "witch hunt" for lack of a better term. The Emperors fear of revolt and of his own bureaucrats initiating a cover up brought on much longer and intense persecution than the actual events warranted. While a notion he supported well it did not really answer the question of why the peasants were thinking these things in the first place. He did spend a little time looking at the role of begging monks and other outsiders and how they were viewed negatively by society. But these things were not really the reason for his writing. He wrote the book to show the relationship between the Emperor and his bureaucrats and how it was full of mistrust and how the balance of power fell. With that in mind I would say it is definitely a book recommended for late political historians, but not so much for people who are interested in sorcery or religious beliefs.
This book however was not really about the sorcery scare, rather it was about bureaucratic politics of the time and to that end I found it rather disappointing. Having read Ter Har's White Lotus I was hoping for an equaly interesting account of the lives and beliefs of the people involved in the sorcery scare, it's roots, what and why it happened and what this showed about beliefs. While looking into this a little Kuhn focused almost entirely on the Imperial and Bureaucratic implications of the event. When discussing the acts of the soul stealers he focused entirely on the clipping of the queues as a purely physical and political event rather than anything spiritual. He was also very dismissive it seemed of any "superstitious" beliefs or "ghost stories" of the common people. In his mind the bureaucrats and the Emperor were both a step above the common folk in their skepticism of sorcery. He clearly had in his mind a firm separation between beliefs of the local and the elite, which has been brought into question by many of the historians that I have been reading lately.
His focus for the event was how it reflected the distribution of power between the Emperor and his bureaucrats. Which, while informative, was really not what I wanted to read about. He did have one chapter looking at the religious side, and the lives of the people affected. Reading through his footnotes I found myself familiar with all his secoundary sources, except for one Steven Harrell article which I will have to track down as it sounded quite interesting.
His conclusion about the "scare" seemed to be that it was a bureaucratic fear that was simply a "witch hunt" for lack of a better term. The Emperors fear of revolt and of his own bureaucrats initiating a cover up brought on much longer and intense persecution than the actual events warranted. While a notion he supported well it did not really answer the question of why the peasants were thinking these things in the first place. He did spend a little time looking at the role of begging monks and other outsiders and how they were viewed negatively by society. But these things were not really the reason for his writing. He wrote the book to show the relationship between the Emperor and his bureaucrats and how it was full of mistrust and how the balance of power fell. With that in mind I would say it is definitely a book recommended for late political historians, but not so much for people who are interested in sorcery or religious beliefs.
November 11, 2019
There are books I like to read and books I like to teach. Soulstealers is a remarkable combination of both: a compelling narrative, a sophisticated argument, complex characters...so much here that grabs the reader's attention and pays it off with important insights about the nature of 18th century China. Even more than that, Soulstealers speaks to the nature of power itself and why humans behave as they do.That's a lot to say about a book! But Soulstealers delivers.
November 16, 2025
Starts off a bit slow but then picks up to be a pretty interesting read!
This book provides a pretty interesting look into the society and politics of the High Qing period -- by picking a specific, narrow incident, Kuhn is able to illustrate the ways that the system worked, the way people interacted all the way from the Emperor down to travelling vagrants. In particular, the book benefits from extensive quotes from palace memorials sent to/from the Qianlong Emperor -- who is comically snippy at times! My favourite quotation may be the following "Governor Asha: Your humble minister is extremely stupid / Emperor: Indeed you are extremely stupid".
Overall, I think this is worth reading for those interested in Chinese history. It starts with a lot of context-setting which is admittedly a bit slow, but then it picks up once it gets into a bit more of the narrative part.
This book provides a pretty interesting look into the society and politics of the High Qing period -- by picking a specific, narrow incident, Kuhn is able to illustrate the ways that the system worked, the way people interacted all the way from the Emperor down to travelling vagrants. In particular, the book benefits from extensive quotes from palace memorials sent to/from the Qianlong Emperor -- who is comically snippy at times! My favourite quotation may be the following "Governor Asha: Your humble minister is extremely stupid / Emperor: Indeed you are extremely stupid".
Overall, I think this is worth reading for those interested in Chinese history. It starts with a lot of context-setting which is admittedly a bit slow, but then it picks up once it gets into a bit more of the narrative part.
February 16, 2026
A pretty delightful historical monograph. More fun in the first half when he’s just painting a lively picture of life and governance in the middle Qing era. I think the latter parts of the book which try to connect this crisis with the broader so-called ‘ontological insecurity’ of the Manchu is a bit muddled. Would have liked more comparison with similar moral panics about sorcery during the mid and late Qing.
January 21, 2023
I think most of us should reflect that why hundreds of years passed by,our mind still stagnated at ancient time,our spirit can still easily be controled by a national panic.
May 14, 2023
If anyone ever tells you that "China" never had any sort of religious discrimination or cases of mass hysteria based on superstition, remind them of this book about just such an episode in the 18th century in the Qing empire. Back then masons, carpenters and other builders were commonly (at least in the 18th century) thought to have baleful magical powers. Not that this was the only bad thing back then. For instance: Chia-kun (or "pressing beam") was part of the customary courtroom torture for a guy who was presumed guilty anyway. Leave it to imperial chinese officials, they know now to torture. That beam is also called an ankle press, which according to description can reduce your ankles to jelly.
Granted, this book has some problems, early on. I skipped the rest of this introduction chapter, I really don't need these accounts of people accused to be soul stealers.
It got better afterwards, and you learn that the sourcery scare happened when the empire was at a prosperous time, not the downtimes of the 19th century. And I forgot that sweet potatoes are from the Americas, in fact the book mentions how maize, sweet potateos and tobacco were useful because they could be grown on dry land, then there was all these mexican silver brought in via trade, and you have a big population explosion. And labor emancipation.
To understand a bit about this case of sorcery scare you have to keep in mind that under the prior ruling Ming empire, adult manhood and elite status were signalized by long, elaborately kept hair. And what symbolized manliness to the manchu warriors meant effeminacy to the chinese. Plus, the Qing were foreign rulers and so there were naturally a lot of elements in the empire that were against the Qing and even some weird stories. Like one guy who claimed that there was this mystical western ming kingdrom that would bring armies in flying machines to liberate the people from the Qing.
And at the time, the ruling emperor, Hungli, showed hair-trigger militancy against petty slights to Manchu honor. Wording that offered even the subtlest suggestion of an ethnic slur could cost a writer his head. Sadly, the book continued with the problem of providing case samples of people being accused of sorcery and I really couldn't care any less about that. It just seemed superfluous to me.
I was more interested in facts like those that sorcery was prohibited under the Qing code and the"evil arts" category seems really vague, all sorts of local practices could be subsumed under it. The statute 162 which is associated with shamans and evil arts was even used to prosecute two early 19th century cases of sexual deviancy involving transvestite monks. Both convicted of "deluding" people by means of sorcery, so transvestism was considered unnatural. And apparently there was a distinction between sorcery (learned) and witchcraft (innate), which seems practical.
Also, so far the value of this book is not the information on the soulstaler scare but rather on the society and laws in general. And ober time, not only were there sorcerers in the capital already and people being affected all over the place but someone was handing out pictures of "strange insects" that were allegedly magical and harmful. And of course since the long hair of men is also a political symbol, the emperor suspected sedition due to the reports of cut off hair. But sadly such useful information was rather an exeption, these example cases have a few necessary infos here and there for the bigger picture of the crisis but mostly, they seem superflous. And it took the book up to the last quarter to get back to the sorcery scare, before that there was entire chapter about nothing but buerocracy!
The final part basically stated that the sorcery scare was a good opportunity for common people to gain power and settel scores. That could have been said much sooner. Sadly, this author was too occupied with details of specific cases for my taste.
Granted, this book has some problems, early on. I skipped the rest of this introduction chapter, I really don't need these accounts of people accused to be soul stealers.
It got better afterwards, and you learn that the sourcery scare happened when the empire was at a prosperous time, not the downtimes of the 19th century. And I forgot that sweet potatoes are from the Americas, in fact the book mentions how maize, sweet potateos and tobacco were useful because they could be grown on dry land, then there was all these mexican silver brought in via trade, and you have a big population explosion. And labor emancipation.
To understand a bit about this case of sorcery scare you have to keep in mind that under the prior ruling Ming empire, adult manhood and elite status were signalized by long, elaborately kept hair. And what symbolized manliness to the manchu warriors meant effeminacy to the chinese. Plus, the Qing were foreign rulers and so there were naturally a lot of elements in the empire that were against the Qing and even some weird stories. Like one guy who claimed that there was this mystical western ming kingdrom that would bring armies in flying machines to liberate the people from the Qing.
And at the time, the ruling emperor, Hungli, showed hair-trigger militancy against petty slights to Manchu honor. Wording that offered even the subtlest suggestion of an ethnic slur could cost a writer his head. Sadly, the book continued with the problem of providing case samples of people being accused of sorcery and I really couldn't care any less about that. It just seemed superfluous to me.
I was more interested in facts like those that sorcery was prohibited under the Qing code and the"evil arts" category seems really vague, all sorts of local practices could be subsumed under it. The statute 162 which is associated with shamans and evil arts was even used to prosecute two early 19th century cases of sexual deviancy involving transvestite monks. Both convicted of "deluding" people by means of sorcery, so transvestism was considered unnatural. And apparently there was a distinction between sorcery (learned) and witchcraft (innate), which seems practical.
Also, so far the value of this book is not the information on the soulstaler scare but rather on the society and laws in general. And ober time, not only were there sorcerers in the capital already and people being affected all over the place but someone was handing out pictures of "strange insects" that were allegedly magical and harmful. And of course since the long hair of men is also a political symbol, the emperor suspected sedition due to the reports of cut off hair. But sadly such useful information was rather an exeption, these example cases have a few necessary infos here and there for the bigger picture of the crisis but mostly, they seem superflous. And it took the book up to the last quarter to get back to the sorcery scare, before that there was entire chapter about nothing but buerocracy!
The final part basically stated that the sorcery scare was a good opportunity for common people to gain power and settel scores. That could have been said much sooner. Sadly, this author was too occupied with details of specific cases for my taste.
October 25, 2024
People from different social classes are like different species. The book analyzed the "soulstealing" issue through 3 different aspects, not only reveals China's superstition but also the social class structure of the Qing Dynasty.
May 29, 2022
作者功力也太深厚了，通过一件荒唐的无头案把整个清帝国上下如何运作阐释的清清楚楚，而且把说不清道不明的潜规则和黑暗面拿出来剖析，有种豁然开朗柳暗花明的感觉。如果有人分析疫情下中国如何运作，中国又变了多少呢
July 31, 2014
Soulstealers is a masterful work on the political sociology and the psychology of power during a brief but dramatic episode at the height of the Qing dynasty. The anecdotes of the cases of soulstealing, which revolve around queue clipping and name stealing, are revealing for what they show the reader about marginal monks and superstitious citizens. Also significant is the political meaning of hair, since all Chinese men were to wear a queue as a sign of their slavery to the Manchu throne. Then as later in the Qing dynasty, queue clipping was understood as a powerful form of sedition.
The truly exciting thing about Kuhn's book is the microscopic analysis of how the Imperial state apparatus functioned (or ultimately almost failed to function) during this strange set of episodes. The pattern of memorials traveling from mandarins to emperor shows how strongly the mandarins wished to please the emperor and how much they dreaded his vermilion-inked scorn (or worse). We also catch a glimpse of the emperor at his job, trying to keep his far-flung imperial domain under control by snuffing out any kindling fires. The soulstealing episodes were such a set of kindling fires, and they appeared to threaten to consume the empire in flames due to the superstitious panic of the masses of Chinese and on account of the officials who were judged to be mishandling the entire affair. Ultimately the affair of soulstealing was settled, and the emperor himself was finally forced to face the reality that the panic was actually unfounded and that his own actions had contributed to the mishandling of the situation.
This book offers many lessons on the dangers of absolute rule, from the tendency to blame the messenger to the worthlessness of testimony given under torture. Although the book is more like political history than ethnography, it succeeds in making apparent a fascinating culture of the eighteenth century--not the culture of the Chinese per se, but the culture of the Imperial Chinese coercive state apparatus. All those who talk about the culture of a business or of a government would profit from a close reading of this book. I only give it four stars because I was hoping to learn more about that other culture, the culture of the mass of Chinese people who managed to conjure such an effective scare in the Qing world they lived in.
The truly exciting thing about Kuhn's book is the microscopic analysis of how the Imperial state apparatus functioned (or ultimately almost failed to function) during this strange set of episodes. The pattern of memorials traveling from mandarins to emperor shows how strongly the mandarins wished to please the emperor and how much they dreaded his vermilion-inked scorn (or worse). We also catch a glimpse of the emperor at his job, trying to keep his far-flung imperial domain under control by snuffing out any kindling fires. The soulstealing episodes were such a set of kindling fires, and they appeared to threaten to consume the empire in flames due to the superstitious panic of the masses of Chinese and on account of the officials who were judged to be mishandling the entire affair. Ultimately the affair of soulstealing was settled, and the emperor himself was finally forced to face the reality that the panic was actually unfounded and that his own actions had contributed to the mishandling of the situation.
This book offers many lessons on the dangers of absolute rule, from the tendency to blame the messenger to the worthlessness of testimony given under torture. Although the book is more like political history than ethnography, it succeeds in making apparent a fascinating culture of the eighteenth century--not the culture of the Chinese per se, but the culture of the Imperial Chinese coercive state apparatus. All those who talk about the culture of a business or of a government would profit from a close reading of this book. I only give it four stars because I was hoping to learn more about that other culture, the culture of the mass of Chinese people who managed to conjure such an effective scare in the Qing world they lived in.
September 2, 2011
Kuhn’s thrilling portrayal of the whimsical 1768 sorcery scare is only a prism to refract the complex and multilayered power dynamics of the Qianlong emperorship. The central layer was undoubtedly the strange bedfellows of the emperor and the bureaucracy forged by the need to rule and yet unceasingly afflicted by deep-rooted mutual mistrust that sprung from constant competition for control (particularly the control of information). The systemic evils of the bureaucracy and the power dynamics within the bureaucracy were also important actors in fueling the collective madness of 1768. Last but not least, Qianlong’s phobia of assimilation and sedition coupled with the general social nastiness unleashed by the economic growth and population pressure at the time, though un-provable as causal links, nonetheless were conducive to further exacerbating the popular fear of sorcery into a series of public spectacle.
A fascinating book for anyone interesting in imperial Chinese history and the inner workings of the Qing bureaucracy!
A fascinating book for anyone interesting in imperial Chinese history and the inner workings of the Qing bureaucracy!
September 7, 2017
Kuhn's Soulstealers was more than a treatise on Chinese history, it is a negative example that perfectly captures the deficiencies of centralized systems which are established according to hierarchies of power. It is also a nice parallel read to Le Bon's The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind and Huang's 1587: A Year of No Significance -- the former demonstrated the existence of an often irrational popular mind through this specific example, while the latter provided more insights into the culturally and socioeconomically profound reasons behind the malfunctions of imperial China's bureaucratic system.
Overall this is a book of high academic quality, in the meantime, the book also bears characteristics of a good historical novel in the sense that the storytelling was quite vivid and dramatic in style. I would like to recommend this book to the readers of the two aforementioned books, as well as any people with genuine interest in that particular period of history.
Overall this is a book of high academic quality, in the meantime, the book also bears characteristics of a good historical novel in the sense that the storytelling was quite vivid and dramatic in style. I would like to recommend this book to the readers of the two aforementioned books, as well as any people with genuine interest in that particular period of history.
October 19, 2018
让人眼前一亮的是作者最后提出的独裁者-官僚主义并非不能共存的观点，而依据则来自于1786年乾隆针对「叫魂」发起的运动及相关奏折上的朱笔（有些让人看乐了），平民借此互相报复，官员借此（一开始极力压制）升官，皇帝借此整饬纪律。事件的结局看似从官僚里找了替罪羊，维护了独裁者的颜面，但又何不是官僚牺牲了一点小我，从而能继续麻痹独裁者？
October 25, 2018
I'm not into this book. It's kind of dull.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 23, 2020
中国当代充满了这种幻觉权力进入社会的例子
September 23, 2020
此书是極好的反駁國內「去美國學個什麼勁的中國史」之類言論的材料。前八章叙述叫魂案的前因后果，适时插入High Qing文化社会背景的内容。最后两章结合全部交给分析，略显突兀。在Weber的研究和已有清朝官僚体制和权力运作的文献基础上，提出君主的独裁权力和官僚的程式化权力可以共存的观点。乾隆醉翁之意不在酒，真正关心的不是谁剪了辫子，而是他的江山和奴才。但奴才（干部）们又是社会的安全阀。
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 28, 2016
The Qianlong emperor is often regarded as the most prosperous era of the Qing empire. Indeed, it was a time of rapid population growth, an improved and vast economy, and of expanding regional hegemony. However, with the changing material conditions, Chinese society was unsettled, disoriented from traditional life, and commoners began to see the changes at a personal level in their own towns. Meanwhile the emperor’s power becomes less centralized as he shifts his duties to corrupt bureaucrats, the Empire as a whole “incompletely centralized” as Max Weber observed. (188 soulstealer) Philip Kuhn discusses in his Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768, that amidst these political realities, a social phenomenon occurs in which mass hysteria breaks out over rumors of sorcerers clipping cues (or souls) off unsuspecting men. While the obvious discussion of the book revolves around the sorcery scare itself, latently Kuhn’s book elucidates an important analysis of the inner workings of authoritarian government confident of its rule but always paranoid about the possibly of a dissents or outright rebellion. It details the differing reactions to the sorcery at the local government/police level, the commoners level, and at the Empire’s level. Moreover, Soulstealers also reveals that Chinese society seems to have an illusion of social cohesion, that’s made apparent when commoners quickly turn to accusing outsiders and ethnic minorities of being “soulstealers.” The strength of the book is in Kuhn’s special care of giving examples of cultural, religious, normative, political, and economic elements of the story. Kuhn successfully weaves them together to form a clear narrative that seems to honestly reflect this particular phenomenon. His use of sources never feels like a distortion of evidence to benefit a certain argument, rather an explication of appropriate data.
While his analysis looks at the aforementioned elements to discern an understanding for this case of mass hysteria, he consistently cautions the reader to avoid strongly inferring one reason over another. In this way he is promoting a type of scholarly work that allows for the unity of theories, and promotes an interdisciplinary approach to history that I admire. The second chapter of the book deals with the economic factors of Chinese society in the 18th century. Drawing from an excellent and rich array of primary sources, Kuhn explains the rapid changes in China’s economy. The population “roughly doubled in the 18th century” (41) which led to the need for people to find work, thereby leading to likely massive amounts of migration throughout the region. Why is this relevant? Well, the suspicion “of soul stealing focused on wanderers: strangers, people without roots, people of obscure origins and uncertain purpose, people lacking social connections, people out of control.” (41) The victims of lynch mobs and torture chambers were mostly beggars (and monks). While this economic reality assuredly contributed to the increase in beggars, it does not explain why beggars were singled out at suspected sorcerers. Kuhn explains that “I would love to be able to say that Chinese of the eighteenth century feared soul-loss because these felt their lives threatened by unseen forces…such an assertion however bewitching can certainly never be proved.” (48) This is just one example of Kuhn effectively analyzing a factor in the inquiry of the sorcerer scare, and undergirding his analysis with warnings to not infer wholly on that evidence. This demonstrates a comprehensive, and critical historical piece, but often makes the reader feel as though there is no real answer for the scare itself.
Another strength to this book is Kuhn’s ability to reveal commonalities within Chinese society. While he discusses the differences between regions, even going so far as to discuss how local bureaucrats governed in differing ways, he also picks out commonalities in various forms of analysis. One such example is that Kuhn explains that “the hysteria that spread over east-central China in 1776 was cultured in a rich broth of local sorcery beliefs.” (26) Not surprisingly, local sorcery beliefs varied greatly depending on where you were in China, however there were some foundational beliefs that most regions agreed upon. Simply, they believed that the human body can “under certain conditions, can be separated” (26) from the body and used to benefit or empower the soulstealer certain abilities. The soul could be removed by clipping the queue tip on men or women’s lapel. The sorcerer would likely stupefy the victim so they couldn’t resist the spell/incantation or queue clipping. Then the victim would sicken and die. Sorcerers were likely people who already dealt with the supernatural such as Buddhist monks or Taoist priests.
Lastly, Kuhn’s treatment of the motivations of people during this sorcerer scare is another strength to his book. The Emperor, while he believed sorcery was “bunk, an absurd superstition” (226) he had an extreme paranoia of sedition. Did the Emperor believe that people were truly losing their souls thanks to sorcerers clipping queues? Probably not, but rather he understood the symbolic power of men’s queues (and how it expresses submission to the kings), and men losing their queues meant sedition. Kuhn also explains how the emperor’s campaign against the sorcery scare functioned to maintain the omnipotent but shadowy presence of the throne. Moreover, Kuhn discusses the common people and their motivations for accusations. He suggests that in a society with very little chance of personal empowerment due to government and cultural barriers, people sought to experience some sense of empowerment in their singling out of the “underclass.”
While this book offers a fascinating and comprehensive portrayal of the Chinese sorcery scare of 1768, the book also attempts to nullify the idea that this was a “prosperous age.” Moreover, in his discussion of the social dynamics of China, the lack of personal agency among the common people, the overarching and shadowy figure of the government, and the unity felt through illogical and hysterical behavior during the sorcery scare, Kuhn also elucidates realities that perhaps still persist in China today. One can easily draw comparisons between the Mao Communist party and the Dynastic Rule. Also between the present governments’ attempt at controlling normative behaviors of Chinese society by controlling internet use and the bureaucrats’ response to the sorcerer scare to restore submission and cultural hegemony. This book is valuable to researchers attempting to understand social dynamics and social cohesion amidst authoritarian governments, and it offers plenty of analogies widely applicable to history and social sciences. For the reader who would like to have a single thesis on the cause of the sorcery scare, this may not be the book for you.
While his analysis looks at the aforementioned elements to discern an understanding for this case of mass hysteria, he consistently cautions the reader to avoid strongly inferring one reason over another. In this way he is promoting a type of scholarly work that allows for the unity of theories, and promotes an interdisciplinary approach to history that I admire. The second chapter of the book deals with the economic factors of Chinese society in the 18th century. Drawing from an excellent and rich array of primary sources, Kuhn explains the rapid changes in China’s economy. The population “roughly doubled in the 18th century” (41) which led to the need for people to find work, thereby leading to likely massive amounts of migration throughout the region. Why is this relevant? Well, the suspicion “of soul stealing focused on wanderers: strangers, people without roots, people of obscure origins and uncertain purpose, people lacking social connections, people out of control.” (41) The victims of lynch mobs and torture chambers were mostly beggars (and monks). While this economic reality assuredly contributed to the increase in beggars, it does not explain why beggars were singled out at suspected sorcerers. Kuhn explains that “I would love to be able to say that Chinese of the eighteenth century feared soul-loss because these felt their lives threatened by unseen forces…such an assertion however bewitching can certainly never be proved.” (48) This is just one example of Kuhn effectively analyzing a factor in the inquiry of the sorcerer scare, and undergirding his analysis with warnings to not infer wholly on that evidence. This demonstrates a comprehensive, and critical historical piece, but often makes the reader feel as though there is no real answer for the scare itself.
Another strength to this book is Kuhn’s ability to reveal commonalities within Chinese society. While he discusses the differences between regions, even going so far as to discuss how local bureaucrats governed in differing ways, he also picks out commonalities in various forms of analysis. One such example is that Kuhn explains that “the hysteria that spread over east-central China in 1776 was cultured in a rich broth of local sorcery beliefs.” (26) Not surprisingly, local sorcery beliefs varied greatly depending on where you were in China, however there were some foundational beliefs that most regions agreed upon. Simply, they believed that the human body can “under certain conditions, can be separated” (26) from the body and used to benefit or empower the soulstealer certain abilities. The soul could be removed by clipping the queue tip on men or women’s lapel. The sorcerer would likely stupefy the victim so they couldn’t resist the spell/incantation or queue clipping. Then the victim would sicken and die. Sorcerers were likely people who already dealt with the supernatural such as Buddhist monks or Taoist priests.
Lastly, Kuhn’s treatment of the motivations of people during this sorcerer scare is another strength to his book. The Emperor, while he believed sorcery was “bunk, an absurd superstition” (226) he had an extreme paranoia of sedition. Did the Emperor believe that people were truly losing their souls thanks to sorcerers clipping queues? Probably not, but rather he understood the symbolic power of men’s queues (and how it expresses submission to the kings), and men losing their queues meant sedition. Kuhn also explains how the emperor’s campaign against the sorcery scare functioned to maintain the omnipotent but shadowy presence of the throne. Moreover, Kuhn discusses the common people and their motivations for accusations. He suggests that in a society with very little chance of personal empowerment due to government and cultural barriers, people sought to experience some sense of empowerment in their singling out of the “underclass.”
While this book offers a fascinating and comprehensive portrayal of the Chinese sorcery scare of 1768, the book also attempts to nullify the idea that this was a “prosperous age.” Moreover, in his discussion of the social dynamics of China, the lack of personal agency among the common people, the overarching and shadowy figure of the government, and the unity felt through illogical and hysterical behavior during the sorcery scare, Kuhn also elucidates realities that perhaps still persist in China today. One can easily draw comparisons between the Mao Communist party and the Dynastic Rule. Also between the present governments’ attempt at controlling normative behaviors of Chinese society by controlling internet use and the bureaucrats’ response to the sorcerer scare to restore submission and cultural hegemony. This book is valuable to researchers attempting to understand social dynamics and social cohesion amidst authoritarian governments, and it offers plenty of analogies widely applicable to history and social sciences. For the reader who would like to have a single thesis on the cause of the sorcery scare, this may not be the book for you.
July 16, 2020
Praises: (1) A very nice research method -- the author cuts into the grand topic of Chinese history by cross-sectioning the event "soulstealers." (2) Profound research, as the author dived into a surprising rich set of references, and not second-hand but many first-hand, hard-to-read classical Chinese documents, year after year. (3) Constructive for people who want to identify what is wrong with Chinese society -- corrupted bureaucracy, ignorant mass who do not know logical reasoning, migrants who don't need to care about credits because the new environment does not know their past, and the decision-maker with very incomplete information and only caring about consolidating own power over anything.
Summary: The book investigates every aspect related with the event "soulstealers" in emperor Qianlong's regime in Qing Dynasty in China. The event is an evil superstitious activity among folks which went through a prolonged process before being eliminated. This event reveals many large social problems beneath the seemingly prosperous Chinese society (ranked top-1 in the world's GDP that time).
Achievement: I would compare the academic brilliance of this book with Guns, Germs, and Steel. The Guns book is better on its span (world history), and this book is better on its constructive inspirations on identifying the social/systematic problems in Chinese society (impacting billions of people, and focused more specifically).
Summary: The book investigates every aspect related with the event "soulstealers" in emperor Qianlong's regime in Qing Dynasty in China. The event is an evil superstitious activity among folks which went through a prolonged process before being eliminated. This event reveals many large social problems beneath the seemingly prosperous Chinese society (ranked top-1 in the world's GDP that time).
Achievement: I would compare the academic brilliance of this book with Guns, Germs, and Steel. The Guns book is better on its span (world history), and this book is better on its constructive inspirations on identifying the social/systematic problems in Chinese society (impacting billions of people, and focused more specifically).
July 9, 2022
The book I read is in the English version. Still, I strongly recommend everyone interested in it to read the Chinese-translated edition because the words and jargon that the emperor of the Qing Dynasty used cannot precisely be demonstrated in foreign languages if not in Chinese. For example, I don’t think the “gumption” is the best translation for the emperor’s comments to someone as “有出息.”
Before opening this book, I thought it might be some fiction full of evil art popular in ancient China. After finishing the first chapter, I realized I was entirely wrong. It can be regarded as a textbook for teaching you how to administrate in Chinese society, no matter whether you would govern the country or manage a company. It is necessary to establish a particular logic and structure to deal with the complicated relationships among Chinese people. Most of the problems seem impossible to be explained correctly by the rational principles widely accepted by other countries worldwide. The practical measurements can only be found through the long-standing Chinese history and the vast amount of Classical Chinese works of literature. The author of this book tried to explain the social phenomena and crises during the 18th century in China by Max Webb’s theories and other scholars’ perspectives, but unfortunately, he failed. In modern times, if you want to understand Chinese people and society, I again recommend you try to understand Chinese history. Following her steps to go forward, you should understand how China has been developing herself and where to go in the future.
Before opening this book, I thought it might be some fiction full of evil art popular in ancient China. After finishing the first chapter, I realized I was entirely wrong. It can be regarded as a textbook for teaching you how to administrate in Chinese society, no matter whether you would govern the country or manage a company. It is necessary to establish a particular logic and structure to deal with the complicated relationships among Chinese people. Most of the problems seem impossible to be explained correctly by the rational principles widely accepted by other countries worldwide. The practical measurements can only be found through the long-standing Chinese history and the vast amount of Classical Chinese works of literature. The author of this book tried to explain the social phenomena and crises during the 18th century in China by Max Webb’s theories and other scholars’ perspectives, but unfortunately, he failed. In modern times, if you want to understand Chinese people and society, I again recommend you try to understand Chinese history. Following her steps to go forward, you should understand how China has been developing herself and where to go in the future.
January 8, 2019
I expected this to be a book on a very esoteric subject, which it was, but it was interesting to read how it tied into the Qing dynasty (during the reign of Qianlong) and everything going on during that time, from the economy in general, to the poorest strata of society, up to the very top (the emperor himself).
Anyway, this is a great overview of how court cases were dealt with, how confessions under torture worked, how bureaucracy worked during this time, how the emperor dealt with his subordinates, as well as how the sorcery scare happened and progressed. Very interesting to see what perfect targets itinerant buddhist and taoist monks were, since they were anti-confucian (leaving their family and not having children), were outsiders, and were "well-versed" in sorcery and spells. The emperor ended up taken it very seriously, since one of the acts they were accused of doing was cutting off peoples' queues, which could be seen as subversive to the Manchu dynasty and an act of rebellion.
All in all a very thorough look into an interesting time of the Qing dynasty. I agree with the reviewer who said it seems inspired by Jonathan Spence (or something like that. I can't find the review anymore). It's in the same vein, trying to make serious, scholarly work more interesting to the general public.
Anyway, this is a great overview of how court cases were dealt with, how confessions under torture worked, how bureaucracy worked during this time, how the emperor dealt with his subordinates, as well as how the sorcery scare happened and progressed. Very interesting to see what perfect targets itinerant buddhist and taoist monks were, since they were anti-confucian (leaving their family and not having children), were outsiders, and were "well-versed" in sorcery and spells. The emperor ended up taken it very seriously, since one of the acts they were accused of doing was cutting off peoples' queues, which could be seen as subversive to the Manchu dynasty and an act of rebellion.
All in all a very thorough look into an interesting time of the Qing dynasty. I agree with the reviewer who said it seems inspired by Jonathan Spence (or something like that. I can't find the review anymore). It's in the same vein, trying to make serious, scholarly work more interesting to the general public.
March 19, 2022
The rulers' campaigning governance of heresy (political sin) in the anxiety of imaginary enemies. Such a movement stems from the suspicion of mistrust at the top, and the participation of bitterness and wavering at the bottom. Referring to Zhou Xueguang's essay 'Movement-based governance', the banal acquiescence of the bureaucracy and the periodic, out-of-the-box but often uncontrollable movements, as well as the tensions and limitations of the personnel-information mechanism, are interesting themes. Writing history to this fine, perceptive point is so wonderful - the anxieties and paradoxes of legitimacy; the dilemmas of exclusivity and handiwork; bureaucracy; the comparative problems of belief in judicial justice; distrust of the masses; the fear of each up and down; 'heresy'; employment and stability; the masses in movement; upward accountability and administrative contracting; historical inertia; the goal of shared interests..." The so-called "soul-calling" sorcery is just a spectre born of ignorance and nurtured by jealousy." Perhaps the options (as given by the author): 1. more institutionalisation 2. direct intervention by authoritarian power. "Demonology is an illusion of power and a compensation for power", there is a root behind the absurd tragedy, a "molehill" under the poor wheel.
November 14, 2024
An in-depth analysis of the political and social phantom exacted by an absurd superstition manifest during the Qing Dynasty. As Ch'ien-lung emperor, Hungli, tried to maintain power while subverting dissent, he finds himself at the mercy of his slowly (and simultaneously quite quickly) eroding control of administrators by way of bureaucratic corruption so inherent in monarchical regimes. Most fascinating is how a rather mundane rumour in an even more mundane instance unravels paranoia about revolts, assimilation woes, and rampant unrest from the common citizens. This is a wholly gripping perspective by Kuhn with counterpoints to theories surrounding the sorcerers' many potential identities and motives with a deftness in writing that's both clear and enthralling.
October 14, 2019
A goddamn masterclass of a history book: lucid, wonderfully organized with integrated historical context, beautiful primary sourcing, clear interpretive delimitation, and a wonderfully sharply-argued theorizing at the end.
The relatively obscure core story is magnificently used to explore the structure and tensions of the Chinese monarchical bureaucracy, whose thoroughness serves both as theme and detailed source.
You are given a wonderful, fully-realized landscape of a moment and place in time that never overstays its welcome in minutiae or lacks something interesting to say. I cannot overstate the greatness of this book and am picking up every other piece of work by Kuhn
The relatively obscure core story is magnificently used to explore the structure and tensions of the Chinese monarchical bureaucracy, whose thoroughness serves both as theme and detailed source.
You are given a wonderful, fully-realized landscape of a moment and place in time that never overstays its welcome in minutiae or lacks something interesting to say. I cannot overstate the greatness of this book and am picking up every other piece of work by Kuhn
May 24, 2020
Read this a while ago. He was clearly trying to draw parallels with politics in modern/contemporary China. He said so explicitly if I remember correctly. That very much devalues the book into a typical western political commentary about lack of democracy, rule of law, human rights, done in an extraordinarily oblique way in the guise of history.
He points out how the case escalated rapidly because of the authoritarian system and then disappeared just as quickly when the emperor dropped it. I think he is very much overstating the scale and significance of the 'scare' to make his political point, just as western critics hark on and on about the persecution of the Falungong cult today.
He points out how the case escalated rapidly because of the authoritarian system and then disappeared just as quickly when the emperor dropped it. I think he is very much overstating the scale and significance of the 'scare' to make his political point, just as western critics hark on and on about the persecution of the Falungong cult today.
January 16, 2023
Such a book proves that Chinese history and society is not an inaccessible illusion, still less an unsolvable mystery.
Looking back in 2023, tragedies even crazier and more tragic than the Soul-stealers are still being repeated in reality: the anchor that was supposed to stop the ship of the times from turning into madness, and the people who had the power and confidence to stop it, were mercilessly thrown out of the history of the land a long time ago.
Pandora's box has been opened and all the scourges have flown out, rampant and without end. Hope, still cruelly imprisoned in the darkness of tyranny, does not know how long it will take to see the day of righteousness..
Looking back in 2023, tragedies even crazier and more tragic than the Soul-stealers are still being repeated in reality: the anchor that was supposed to stop the ship of the times from turning into madness, and the people who had the power and confidence to stop it, were mercilessly thrown out of the history of the land a long time ago.
Pandora's box has been opened and all the scourges have flown out, rampant and without end. Hope, still cruelly imprisoned in the darkness of tyranny, does not know how long it will take to see the day of righteousness..
November 19, 2024
Great academic writing with ample historical evidence. Even in a totalitarian country, history is never the story of a single actor; rather, it is the interplay of all sectors of society. In this book, there are the emperor, the bureaucrat, the common people, and the stray people. The author discussed the reasoning behind each sector in the last chapter. I think the highlight of the book is its last paragraph. Considering the time this book was written, we can easily recognize what the author was implying.
It is also amazing how a historian can unearth an intertwined national movement from piles of old records.
It is also amazing how a historian can unearth an intertwined national movement from piles of old records.
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