Mourning in Late Imperial China Filial Piety and the State [Paperback]

Kutcher's study of mourning demonstrates how Qing China's Manchu leaders quietly but forcefully undermined, not reinvigorated, the Confucian mourning system.To win the approval of China's native elites, Qing China's new Manchu leaders developed an ambitious plan to return Confucianism to civil society by observing laborious and time-consuming mourning rituals, the touchstones of a well ordered Confucian society. The first to do so in any language, Norman Kutcher's study of mourning looks beneath the rhetoric to demonstrate how the state unwilling to make the sacrifices that a genuine commitment to proper mourning demanded quietly but forcefully undermined, not reinvigorated, the Confucian mourning system.To win the approval of China's native elites, Qing China's new Manchu leaders developed an ambitious plan to return Confucianism to civil society by observing laborious and time-consuming mourning rituals, the touchstones of a well ordered Confucian society. The first to do so in any language, Norman Kutcher's study of mourning looks beneath the rhetoric to demonstrate how the state unwilling to make the sacrifices that a genuine commitment to proper mourning demanded quietly but forcefully undermined, not reinvigorated, the Confucian mourning system.To win the approval of China's native elites, Qing China's new Manchu leaders developed an ambitious plan to return Confucianism to civil society by observing laborious and time-consuming mourning rituals, the touchstones of a well-ordered Confucian society. The first to do so in any language, Norman Kutcher's study of mourning looks beneath the rhetoric to demonstrate how the state--unwilling to make the sacrifices that a genuine commitment to proper mourning demanded--quietly but forcefully undermined, not reinvigorated, the Confucian mourning system.List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; A note on conventions; Reigns of Ming and Qing emperors; Introduction; 1. Death and the state in imperial China: continuities; 2.lã‡