Forming the Early Chinese Court

Forming the Early Chinese Court will be an informative and thought-provoking read not only to more specialized readers already acquainted with aspects of Han political culture, but also to students of Han government and the bureaucracy in Chinese history more generally.

Habberstad approaches the “court” not as a thing . . . but as a complex set of evolving relations. The result is an adventurous account of the history of the Han that brings to light heretofore little-noted conversations, contention, and anxiety that were very much constitutive of the history of the Han empire.

Habberstad should be congratulated for his book. Scholars of early Han history will surely benefit from his manifold astute observations.

Forming the Early Chinese Court is an original, lucid, and insightful consideration of developments in Western Han governance.

[P]roduced with great care and reads well, with interesting descriptions of the interconnection between sumptuary regulations and rank and the togetherness of imperial living quarters, audience halls, amusement parks, and official workspace. The book is an important contribution to the study of Chinese early imperial history.

Few ‘China topics’ concern contemporary scholars more than the structures, functions, and powers of the central state. This book will be important for scholars teaching and writing about the evolution of centralized power. Its significance lies in re-envisioning and re-narrating the historical processes that led to the formation of formal government bureaucracy in the Former Han, as a series of personal relationships evolved toward a structure of offices, each with rank, functions, and rewards.

An interesting and important contribution to our knowledge about early China.