David Ownby

The Heaven and Earth Society as popular religion

The profound disdain with which most governments—Qing, Republican, Communist, or, in the case of Southeast Asia, colonial—have treated Chinese secret societies, as well as the undeniable involvement of many of these societies in violent and criminal activities, have obscured the religious elements at the core of the early Heaven and Earth Society (Tiandihui), the most widespread and well-known of Chinese secret societies. The vast historiography treating Chinese secret societies, often grounded in documents produced by hostile governments, has in large measure reproduced the image of secret societies contained in these documents, even if not all scholars have embraced the moral and legal assumptions of their sources. Consequently, society practices and symbols which would be treated as religious in other contexts are frequently dismissed as epiphenomenal or “esoteric” (Stanton 1900, 9; Morgan I960, 5), or as functional means of unifying “dissident” groups (Yang 1961, 61–64).

Brotherhoods and secret societies in early and mid-Qing China : the formation of a tradition

A note on conventions Introduction: Chinese brotherhoods and secret societies through the opium war 1. Brotherhood associations in Southeast China through the Lin Shuangwen rebellion 2. Brotherhood associations, secret societies, and rebellion: the background to the Lin Suangwen uprising 3. Rebellions with and without secret societies: Zhu Yigui and Lin Shuangwen compared 4. Secret societies and popular religion: the Tianhihui in the Western Fujian-Eastern Jiangxi region in the Jiaqing-Daoguang period 5. Marginality and ideology: Qing representations of brotherhood associations and secret societies 6. Chinese brotherhood associations and late imperial China Appendix A: Participation in the Lin Shuangwen uprising Appendix B: Chronology of the Lin Shuangwen uprising Notes Bibliography Glossary Index.

“Secret Societies” Reconsidered: Perspectives on the Social History of Early Modern South China and Southeast Asia . Edited by David Ownby and Mary Somers Heidhues. Armonk, N.Y., and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1993. x, 259 pp.

The growing disconnect between Chinas market-oriented economy with its emerging civil society, and the brittle, anacronistic, and authoritarian state has given rise to intense discussion and debate about political reform, not only by Western observers, but also among Chinese intellectuals. While some expect Chinas political reform to lead to democratization, others have proposed to strengthen the institution of single-party rule and provide it with a solid legal base. This book brings the ongoing debate to life and explores the options for political reform. Offering the perspectives of both Western and Chinese scholars, it presents the controversial argument for building a consultive rule of law regime as an alternative to liberal democracy. It provides several critiques of this thesis, and then tests the thesis through empirical studies on the development of the rule of law in China.

Recent Chinese Scholarship on the History of "Redemptive Societies"

The term “redemptive societies” was coined by Prasenjit Duara in 2001 to describe a number of religious/philanthropic organizations which were an important part of the cultural and social landscape of Republican China in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Although largely forgotten today, Republican-period redemptive societies such as the Daode shexue, the Daoyuan, the Hongwanzihui, the Tongshanshe, and the Yiguandao, built nationwide, urban-based organizations and attracted millions of followers by grounding calls for philanthropic social engagement in a syncretic religious vision which combined universalism and a neotraditional moral fundamentalism. Duara’s interest in redemptive societies was sparked by his study of the Japanese puppet-state of Manchuguo, where such societies flourished under the active encouragement of the Japanese authorities, who sought to harness the societies’ twin emphases on universalism and traditional morality to the greater goal of “liberating” Asia from the fetters of Western imperialism through the vehicle of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. In China proper, redemptive societies had a more checkered history. Secularizing Guomindang authorities were at best skeptical of groups which they viewed as “superstitious,” but Nanjing rarely had the time or the muscle to devote more than sporadic attention to the redemptive societies. By contrast, the Communist regime made elimination of the societies— which they dubbed “reactionary huidaomen”—an important priority and the focus of a nationwide campaign in the early 1950s. The success of this Communist campaign obscured for some decades the importance of redemptive societies to the history of Republican China and the history