Confucian Image Politics

"Zhang’s great strength is in finding new angles from which to tell the story of the late Ming . . . as well as strategic uses of the vernacular never before explored in a systematic way."

"With its insightful observations and unique viewpoint, Confucian Image Politics is a major addition to the field of late imperial Chinese history. This book is essential to scholars interested in the study of gender history and political culture in the Ming and the Qing periods."

"A masterful analysis of how the long-established practices of moralistic discourse and political conflict were intensified through the two actions of Yangming-inspired individual agency and the market imperatives of commercial publishing."

"A powerful, highly original analysis of political discourse and factional struggle from the late Ming dynasty through the early Qing. This is outstanding scholarship, demonstrating an encyclopedic knowledge of primary sources from the seventeenth century. Professor Zhang combines sophisticated discourse analysis (refreshingly free of theoretical cant), with a close reading of high literati culture (calligraphy, poetry, memoirs), to provide an utterly fresh perspective on the politics of the crucial seventeenth century in Chinese history."

"This persuasive book will change the way seasoned scholars think about Ming-to-Qing factionalism. [This] very strong first book by an emerging leader in late-imperial Chinese history leads me to expect even greater contributions from her in the future."

"Masterfully demonstrates the unprecedented importance assumed by print culture in the image politics of the late Ming. This reviewer. . . is deeply impressed by the richness of this study and its analytical rigor and nuances, a result of the author’s masterful command of primary sources (many of which have been rarely explored by previous scholars) and her ability to weave a fascinating and compelling historical narrative about this important period. She has done a marvelous job in defamiliarizing several familiar issues in late imperial Chinese history, such as those of literati factionalism during the late Ming and early Qing imperial politics and the relationship between the Ming loyalists and so-called turncoats in the post-Manchu conquest era, by reexamining and reframing them from new angles and thus offering so many refreshing insights. Students and scholars of Chinese history, culture, and literature, as well as comparative historians, will benefit so much from the insights and information abundant in this study, not only because it is a well-researched scholarly monograph, but also because the author has so many fascinating stories to tell about this tumultuous period in Chinese history."

"Professor Zhang’s fine-grained study of how the many competing factions that rose and fell during the tumultuous years of the late Ming and early Qing deployed Confucian image politics complicates and defamiliarizes a political and cultural landscape that is central to understanding the late imperial period. Confucian Image Politics stands out for its first-rate close readings of a wide range of primary documents, methodological insights, and skillful storytelling that teach us how to read sources from this crucial period of fierce factional battles and whipsaw reputational changes."

"Confucian Image Politics takes on one of the most complicated and controversial political conflicts in Chinese history: the factional struggles that rent the early modern imperial court. Zhang provides a finely nuanced and thoroughly researched analysis of the 'image politics'—a politics of Confucian moralism—that propelled the conflicts, providing both a persuasive revisionist history of a crucial moment in seventeenth-century history and a useful tool for the understanding of political conflict in China today."

"The research behind this book is absolutely first rate. . . . Most often this story [of dynastic transition] is told from the point of view of the government, . . . [but here] we come to see late Ming and early Qing literati through their own eyes, and in their own words and metaphors."

"A vast and erudite work. It encompasses a century in time and a cast of some hundreds of different scholar-officials. . . . The author makes a significant contribution to the study of Chinese history."