Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T02:34:46.143Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political, Social, and Cultural Reproduction via Civil Service Examinations in Late Imperial China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Benjamin A. Elman
Get access

Extract

Most previous scholarship about the civil service examination system in imperial China has emphasized the degree of social mobility such examinations permitted in a premodern society. In the same vein, historians have evaluated the examination process in late imperial China from the perspective of the modernization process in modern Europe and the United States. They have thereby successfully exposed the failure of the Confucian system to advance the specialization and training in science that are deemed essential for nation-states to progress beyond their premodern institutions and autocratic political traditions. In this article, I caution against such contemporary, ahistorical standards for political, cultural, and social formation. These a priori judgments are often expressed teleologically when tied to the “modernization narrative” that still pervades our historiography of Ming (1368–1644) and Ch'ing (1644–1911) dynasty China.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , February 1991 , pp. 7 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Araki, Toshikazu. 1969. Sōdai kakyo seido kinkyū. Kyoto: Dobosha Press.Google Scholar
Ayers, William. 1971. Chang Chih-tung and Educational Reform in China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Balazs, Etienne. 1964. Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy, trans. Wright, H. M.. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Barr, Allan. 1986. “Pu Songling [P'u Sung-ling] and the Qing [Ch'ing] Examination System.” Late Imperial China 7, 1:87–111.Google Scholar
Bol, Peter. 1989. “Chu Hsi's Redefinition of Literati Learning.” In de Bary, Wm. T. and Chaffee, John, eds., Neo-Confucian Education: The Formative Stage. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bol, Peter. Forthcoming. “Review of John Chaffee, The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies.Google Scholar
Boudon, Raymond. 1989. The Analysis of Ideology, trans. Slater, Malcolm. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1971. “Systems of Education and Systems of Thought.” In Young, Michael, ed., Knowledge and Control: New Directions for the Sociology of Education. London: Collier Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Nice, Richard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Passeron, Jean-Claude. 1977. Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture, trans. Nice, Richard. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1979. The Inheritors. French Students and Their Relation to Culture, trans. Nice, Richard. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carnoy, Martin. 1982. “Education, Economy, and the State.” In Apple, Michael, ed., Cultural and Economic Reproduction in Education. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Chaffee, John. 1985. The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chang, Chung-Li. 1955. The Chinese Gentry. Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth- Century Chinese Society. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Myron. 1983. “Lineage Development and the Family in China.” 1983 draft.Google Scholar
Dardess, John. 1987. “The Management of Children and Youth in Upper-Class Households in Late Imperial China.”Paper presented at the summer 1987 meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association held at Occidental College,Pasadena, California.Google Scholar
de Bary, Wm. T. 1981. Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
DeFrancis, John. 1985. The Chinese Language. Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
des Rotours, Robert. 1932. Le traité des examens traduit de la nouvelle histoire des T'ang. Paris: Librairie Ernest Leroux.Google Scholar
Eberhard, wolfram. 1962. Social Mobility in Traditional China. Leiden: E. J. Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ebrey, Patricia. 1978. The Aristocratic Families of Early Imperial China: A Case Study of the Po-ling Ts'ui Family. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ebrey, Patricia, and Watson, James, eds. 1986. Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Elman, Benjamin. 1984. From Philosophy To Philology: Social and Intellectual Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China. Cambridge: Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Elman, Benjamin. 1990. Classicism, Politics, and Kinship. The Ch'ang-chou School of New Text Confucianism in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Elman, Benjamin. Forthcoming. “Confucian Civil Service Examinations and Imperial Ideology During the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties.” In Education and Society in Late Imperial China, eds. Elman, Benjamin and Woodside, Alexander. Conference volume sponsored by ACLS, NEH, and Mellon Foundation.Google Scholar
Elvin, Mark. 1984. “Female Virtue and the State in China.” Past and Present 104:111–152.Google Scholar
Esherick, Joseph, and Rankin, Mary, eds. 1990. Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fei, Hsiao-Tung. 1953. China's Gentry: Essays on Rural-Urban Relations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Franke, Wolfgang. 1960. The Reform and Abolition of the Traditional Chinese Examination System. Cambridge: Harvard East Asian Monograph.Google Scholar
Freedman, Maurice. 1970. Lineage Organization in Southeastern China. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Freedman, Maurice. 1971. Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Goody, Jack, and Watt, Ian. 1968. “The Consequences of Literacy.” In Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. Goody, . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Grafflin, Dennis. 1981. “The Great Families of Medieval South China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 41:65–74.Google Scholar
Grafton, Anthony, and Jardine, Lisa. 1986. From Humanism to the Humanities. Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Europe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Handlin, joanna. 1975. “Lü K'un's New Audience: The Influence of Women's Literacy on Sixteenth-Century Thought.” Women in Chinese Society, eds. Wolf, Margary and Witke, Roxanne. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hartwell, Robert. 1971. “Financial Expertise, Examinations, and the Formulation of Economic Policy in Northern Sung China.” Journal of Asian Studies 30, 2:281–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartwell, Robert. 1982. “Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750–1550.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42, 2 (December): 365–442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hexter, J. H. 1979. Reappraisals in History. New Views on History and Society in Early Modern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ho, Ping-Ti. 1954. “The Salt Merchants of Yang-chou.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 17:130–168.Google Scholar
Ho, Ping-Ti. 1962. The Ladder of Success in Imperial China. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Houn, Franklin. 1956. “The Civil Service Recruitment System of the Han Dynasty.” Tsing-hua hsueh-pao, New Series 1:138–164.Google Scholar
Houston, R. A. 1988. Literacy in Early Modern Europe: Culture and Education, 1500–1800. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Hsiao, Kung-Chuan. 1960. Rural China. Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Philip C. C. 1985. The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hymes, Robert. 1987. Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hymes, Robert. 1986. “Not Quite Gentlemen? Doctors in Sung and Yuan.” Chinese Science 7:11–85.Google Scholar
Johnson, David. 1977. The Medieval Chinese Oligarchy. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, David. 1985. “Communication, Class, and Consciousness in Late Imperial China.” In Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, eds. Johnson, David, Nathan, Andrew, and Rawski, Evelyn. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kahn, Harold. 1971. Monarchy in the Emperor's Eyes: Image and Reality in the Ch'ien-lung Reign. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Keenan, Barry. 1974. “Educational Reform and Politics in Early Republican China.” Journal of Asian Studies 33, 2:226–237.Google Scholar
Kessler, Lawrence. 1976. K'ang-hsi and the Consolidation of Ch'ing Rule. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kracke, E. A. 1947. “Family vs. Merit in Chinese Civil Service Examinations During the Empire.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 10:103–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kracke, E. A. 1968. Civil Service in Early Sung China. Cambridge: Harvard-Yenching Institute.Google Scholar
Ledderose, Lothar. 1972. “An Approach to Chinese Calligraphy.” National Palace Museum Bulletin 7, 1:1–14.Google Scholar
Ledderose, Lothar. 1979. Mi Fu and the Classical Tradition of Chinese Calligraphy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Thomas. 1982. “The Social Significance of the Quota System in Sung Civil Service Examinations.” Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies (Chinese University of Hong Kong) 13:287–318.Google Scholar
Lee, Thomas. 1985. Government, Education and Examinations in Sung China. Hong Kong: Chinese University.Google Scholar
Levenson, Joseph. 1957. “The Amateur Ideal in Ming and Early Ch'ing Society: Evidence from Painting.” In Chinese Thought and Institutions, ed. Fairbank, John. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Liang, Ch'i-Ch'Ao. 1959. Intellectual Trends in the Ch'ing Period, trans. Hsu, Immanuel. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Liu, James T. C. 1973. “How did a Neo-Confucian school become the state orthodoxy?” Philosophy East and West 23, 4:483–505.Google Scholar
Lo, Winston. 1987. An Introduction to the Civil Service of Sung China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Lockridge, Kenneth. 1974. Literacy in Colonial New England. An Enquiry into the Social Context of Literacy in the Early Modern West. New York: Norton and Co.Google Scholar
Hsun, Lu. 1972. “Kung [K'ung] I-chi.” In Selected Stories of Lu Hsun, trans. Hsien-yi, Yang and Yang, Gladys. Peking: Foreign Languages Press.Google Scholar
McClelland, Charles E. 1976. “The Aristocracy and University Reform in Eighteenth-Century Germany.” In Schooling and Society. Studies in the History of Education, ed. Stone, Lawrence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
McKnight, Brian. 1989. “Mandarins As Legal Experts: Professional Learning in Sung China.” In Neo-Confucian Education: The Formative Stage, eds. de Bary, Wm. T. and Chaffee, John. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Meskill, John. 1982. Academies in Ming China. A Historical Essay. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Metzger, Thomas. 1973. The Internal Organization of Ch'ing Bureaucracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Min, Tu-Ki. 1989. National Polity and Local Power: The Transformation of Late Imperial China. Cambridge: Harvard-Yenching Monograph.Google Scholar
Miyakawa, Hisayuki. 1954–55. “An Outline of the Naito Hypothesis and Its Effects on Japanese Studies of China.” Far Eastern Quarterly 14:533–552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miyazaki, Ichisada. 1981. China's Examination Hell, trans. Schirokauer, Conrad. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Mizoguchi, yuzo. 1978. “Iwayuru Tōrinha jinshin no shisō” [The thought of the members of the so-called Tung-lin faction]. Tōyō bunka kinkyūjo kiyō, 75 (March): 111–341.Google Scholar
Naquin, Susan, and Rawski, Evelyn. 1987. Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Needham, joseph. 1970. “China and the Origins of Qualifying Examinations in Medicine.” In Clerks and Craftsmen in China and the West, ed. Needham, Joseph. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nivison, David. 1960. “Protest Against Conventions and Conventions of Protest.” In The Confucian Persuasion, ed. Wright, Arthur. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Ōkubo, Elko. 1976. Min-Shin jidai shoin no kinkyū [Research on academies in the Ming-Ch'ing period]. Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai.Google Scholar
Ono, Kazuko. 1980. “Tōrin tō kō (ichi)” [Study of the Tung-lin party, part 1], Tōhōgakuhō 52:563–594.Google Scholar
Ono, Kazuko. 1983. “Tōrin tō kō (ni)” [Study of the Tung-lin party, part 2], Tōhōgakuhō 55:307–315.Google Scholar
Oxnam, Robert. 1975. Ruling From Horseback. Manchu Politics in the Oboi Regency, 1661–1669. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Peterson, Willard. 1979. Bitter Gourd. Fang 1-chih and the Impetus for Intellectual Change. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Rawski, evelyn. 1979. Education and Popular Literacy in Ch'ing China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Ropp, Paul. 1981. Dissent in Early Modern China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Benjamin I. 1972. “The Limits of ‘Tradition Versus Modernity’ as Categories of Explanation: The Case of Chinese Intellectuals.” Daedalus (Spring): 71–88.Google Scholar
Spence, jonathan. 1980. To Change China. Western Advisers in China, 1620–1960. Middlesex: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Stone, lawrence. 1964. “The Educational Revolution in England, 1560–1640.” Past and Present 28:41–80.Google Scholar
Stone, lawrence. 1969. “Literacy and Education in England 1640–1900.” Past and Present 42:69–139.Google Scholar
Teng, Ssu-Yu. 1967. Chung-kuo k'ao-shih chih-tu shih [History of Chinese examination institutions]. Taipei: Student Bookstore.Google Scholar
Tu, Ching-I. 1974–75. “The Chinese Examination Essay: Some Literary Considerations.” Monumenta Serica 31:393–406.Google Scholar
Twitchett, Denis. 1959. “The Fan Clan's Charitable Estate, 1050–1760.” In Confucianism in Action, eds. Nivison, David and Wright, Arthur. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wakeman, Frederic Jr. 1972. “The Price of Autonomy: Intellectuals in Ming and Ch'ing Politics.” Daedalus 101, 2:35–70.Google Scholar
Wakeman, Frederic Jr. 1975. The Fall of Imperial China. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Waley, Arthur. 1949. The Life and Times of Po Chü-i. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Waltner, Ann. 1983. “Building on the Ladder of Success: The Ladder of Success in Imperial China and Recent Work on Social Mobility.” Ming Studies 17:30–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, James. 1982. “Chinese Kinship Reconsidered: Anthropological Perspectives on Historical Research.” China Quarterly 92:589–622.Google Scholar
Watson, Rubie. 1985. Inequality Among Brothers: Class and Kinship in South China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1954. The Religion of China, trans. Gerth, Hans. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1958. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Parsons, Talcott. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Wechsler, Howard. 1974. Mirror to the Son of Heaven. Wei Cheng at the Court of T'ang T'ai-tsung. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Wlens, Mi Chu. 1980. “Lord and Peasant. The Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century.” Modern China 6, 1:3–34.Google Scholar
Wolf, Margary. 1970. “Child Training and the Chinese Family.” In Family and Kinship in Chinese Society, ed. Freedman, Maurice. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodside, Alexander. 1983. “Some Mid-Qing [Ch'ing] Theorists of Popular Schools.” Modern China 9, 1:3–35.Google Scholar