Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition

This study examines the emergence and evolution in China of a tradition of popular organization generally known under the rubric of "secret society." The author suggests that the secret society is properly understood as one variety of the "brotherhood association," a category that encompasses a range of popular fraternal organizations that flourished in the early and mid-Qing period.

Author: David Ownby
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 09/01/1996
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.18lbs
Size: 9.34h x 6.16w x 0.81d
ISBN: 9780804726511

About the Author
David Ownby is Assistant Research Fellow at the Université de Montréal. He is the co-editor, with Mary Somers Heidhues, of Secret Societies Reconsidered: Perspectives on the Social History of Early Modern South China and Southeast Asia.