Prospects for Peace in South Asia

This book explores cultural change in a Chinese city following the Manchu conquest of 1644. The city of Yangzhou, at the intersection of the Grand Canal and the Yangzi river, is best known as the site of human and physical devastation during the conquest and as a vibrant commercial center during the eighteenth century.

The book focuses on the period between the conquest and the city's commercial florescence--a moment in which Yangzhou was a center of literary culture that was consciously conceived as transregional and transdynastic.

The book shows how Yangzhou's elite used physical sites as markers in the reconstruction of the city, and as vehicles consolidating power and prestige. Gradually, however, the gestures and sites of the postconquest elite were appropriated by the city's increasingly powerful salt merchants and incorporated into a court-oriented culture centered at Beijing.

Author: Tobie Meyer-Fong
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 03/19/2003
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.19lbs
Size: 9.16h x 6.38w x 0.88d
ISBN: 9780804744850

About the Author
Tobie Meyer-Fong is Assistant Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University.