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  1. Home
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  3. Manslaughter, Markets, and Moral Economy
  • Cited by 34
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
October 2009
Print publication year:
2000
Online ISBN:
9780511551345
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511551345
Subjects:
East Asian History, Area Studies, Asian Studies, History
Series:
Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions
Information

Book description

In this book, Thomas Buoye examines the impact of large-scale economic change on social conflict in eighteenth-century China. He draws upon a large body of actual, documented homicide cases originating in property disputes to recreate the social tensions of rural China during the Qianlong reign (1736–95). The development of property rights, a process that had begun in the Ming dynasty, was accompanied by other changes that fostered disruption and conflict, including an explosion in the population growth and the increasing strain on land and resources, and increasing commercialization in agriculture. Buoye challenges the 'markets' and 'moral economy' theories of economic behaviour. Applying the theories of Douglass North for the first time to this subject, he uses an institutional framework to explain seemingly irrational economic choices. Buoye examines demographic and technological factors, ideology, and political and economic institutions in rural China to understand the link between economic and social change.

Reviews

‘This carefully researched and well-crafted book illuminates struggles over land and water in eighteenth-century Guangdong, as well as the nature of the legal process in the high Qing period.’

Source: Journal of Asian Studies

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