Edward L. Farmer

Zhu Yuanzhang and Early Ming Legislation: The Reordering of Chinese Society Following the Era of Mongol Rule

This volume deals with the social legislation of Zhu Yuanzhang, who founded the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), following the era of Mongol rule in China. It recounts the circumstances under which the laws were enacted and what the Emperor claimed he was trying to accomplish - a restoration of traditional Chinese social norms. The contents of several codes are discussed in terms of the groups to which they applied and the range of activities they purported to regulate. The early Ming codes formed one of the most comprehensive and cohesive bodies of law in all of Chinese history. Taken as a group, they constituted an autocrates blueprint for the ideal society. The texts of three codifications - an imperial clan constitution, a general summary of the laws and guidelines for village life - are translated as appendixes.

Civilization as a Unit of World History: Eurasia and Europe's Place in It

A S THE TITLE SUGGESTS this paper will attempt to put Europe in its place. The problem is how to think about world history without taking on a Europocentric perspective. I have no wish to deny or minimize the important role of Europe and European innovations in the modern period. I do, however, wish to avoid looking at the rest of the world through European glasses, or understanding the history of the whole world in terms of European categories. If one is to do world history properly it is crucial to operate with categories which transcend the cultural peculiarities of one region and provide a balanced view of the whole human community. The answer I propose, at least for the period before 1500, is to employ a comparative perspective. Fifteen years ago, my colleagues and I at the University of Minnesota decided to integrate the contents of our survey course on Asian civilizations by using a comparative format. We were inspired in that undertaking by William McNeills book, The Rise of the West, which provided an admirable framework for thinking about world history. 1 Our aim, however, was significantly different from that of The Rise of the West. McNeills focus was on the ascendancy and impact of European civilization in the modern period and our task was to find a way to think simultaneously about a number of other civilizations in Asia. In our enterprise we found McNeills framework very useful up through the middle period of history but inhibiting for the post-1500 period. For our own purposes we devised a comparative schema based upon civilizations as the units

AN AGENDA FOR MING HISTORY: EXPLORING THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

AbstractScholarly communication takes place in both verbal and written form. Papers are read at conferences and articles are published in journals. Translating the former into the latter is always a time-consuming process. The articles which follow were originally presented at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) meeting in Boston in April of 1987. This introduction includes a recasting of a paper read in August of the preceding year at the 32nd International Congress for Asian and North African Studies, in Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany.

Book Reviews : Joanna F. Handlin, Action in Late Ming Thought: The Reorientation of Lu K'un and other Scholar-officials (Berkeley: University of California, 1983) xiv, 258 pp.

decades by two intersecting trends in scholarship. One trend, more avidly pursued in Japan and China than in the English-speaking world, is the analysis of early modern economic and social history. This work has been largely informed by Marxist assumptions about stages of economic development and has focused on market forces and class conflicts. The other trend is the exploration of Chinese intellectual history, advanced

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AbstractNearly a decade has passed since 1968 when Ronald Dimberg, Robert L. Irick and I first published A MING DIRECTORY - 1968 (Taipei: Chinese Materials and Research Aids Service Center, 1968). This listing is an attempt to create a guide to current work in the field. Entries are drawn from two sources: questionnaires filled out by our readers and names on the MING STUDIES mailing list. Both of these sources require some explanation. Most of the questionnaires were returned in 1976; consequently, anticipated dates of publication may be misleading. In the case of subscribers who did not respond to the questionnaire only an address is given. This is done to facilitate communication among scholars. However, users of the directory are advised that in some cases subscribers listed by name only are not themselves working in the field of Ming studies.