Circulating the Code

"Circulating the Code is a beautiful combination of legal history and print culture history... Wonderfully detailed, lucidly written, and packed full of fascinating books, this is a must-read for anyone interested in legal history, the history of the book, and in thinking about comparative histories of print culture and commercial publishing."

"This lucid and fascinating study will appeal to anyone interested in legal history."

"[A] substantial and highly readable contribution to scholarship on law in early modern China."

"[L]ate imperial historians will be grateful to Ting Zhang for showing how two vital fields of late imperial history, legal studies and book history, can instruct one another inprovocative ways."

"[A] solid academic contribution that will have substantial impact on the study of Chinese legal history for many years to come."

"[A] must-read for scholars interested in the production and circulation of legal knowledge, popular reading culture, and commercial publishing history in late imperial China. Through the lens of legal culture and book history, Circulating the Code challenges an “orientalist” view on Chinese history and demonstrates that legal consciousness existed and thrived among various groups in late imperial China."

"Takes recent developments in the field of Chinese legal history to a new level by combining the study of law with the study of book history and print culture."

"Overturns several stereotypes about Chinese law, most importantly that Chinese people did not know what the law was."

"Makes a very important corrective to our understanding of the dissemination of legal information in the late imperial period by defining the ways in which such information was transmitted broadly, even to illiterate commoners. Circulating the Code expands our understanding of the range of works printed during the commercial publishing boom of the late Ming and Qing."