Trial of Modernity Judicial Reform in Early Twentieth-Century China, 1901-1937 [Hardcover]

This is the first book in English on the Chinese judicial system and its operations in the Republican era, filling a large gap in the scholarship on modern China, Chinese law, Chinese legal history, and comparative law. It offers a richly-textured analysis of how judicial reform initiatives were envisioned and pursued by the central government from 1901 through 1937, how the various initiatives were, or failed to be, implemented at the provincial and county levels, and how the reform impacted judicial practices and power relationships in local society. Xu sheds new light on the reach of the Chinese state and on the complex interactions between the judicial field and administrative field within the state system, and between them and local society. In that context, he illuminates what judicial modernity actually meant for the Chinese state and society and why irregularities, abuses, corruption, and informal practices continued in spite of the reform.

This book illuminates what judicial modernity actually meant to the Chinese state and society in the early twentieth century and how the judicial reform resulted in paradoxical consequences due to a lack of resources and a disjunction between the national reform agenda and local social ecology.

This is an important book, not only for what it says about legal reform but also for what it says about the practice of modernity. R. Kent Guy,China Review International

Trial of Modernityis a book that is extensively backed up and illustrated by numerous case studies based on the reading of a large corpus of archival material. It offers a deep insight into the functioning of the judicial system at the grassroots level during the time under examination and shows very clearly the motivations of the different actors involved at all levels of the judiciary and bureaucracy. It can be highly recommended to any reader who wishes to have a detailed and colorful picture of the functioning of the judiciary. Jlc3