Chinese Intellectual History

An Extended Bibliography

Early and Middle Periods

Peterson, Willard, Andrew Plaks and Yu Ying-shih, eds. The Power of Culture: Studies in Chinese Cultural History. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1994.

Pines, Yuri. Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqiu Period, 722- 453 BCE. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002.

Wilson, Thomas A., ed. On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002.

Kleeman, Terry F. Celestial Masters: History and Ritual in Early Daoist Communities. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2016.

Pearce, Scott, Audrey Spiro and Patrica Ebrey, eds. Culture and Power in the Reconstruction of the Chinese Realm, 200-600. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001.

Gernet, Jacques. Buddhism in Chinese Society: An Economic History from the Fifth to the Tenth Centuries. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.

Robson, James. Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue) in Medieval China. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009.

Ebrey, Patricia Buckley and Peter N. Gregory, eds. Religion and Society in T’ang and Sung China. University of Hawaii Press, 1993.

Kohn, Livia and Harold D. Roth, eds. Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, and Ritual. Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, 2002.

Hymes, Robert. Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Halperin, Mark. Out of the Cloister: Literati Perspectives on Buddhism in Sung China, 960-1279. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006.

Benn, James A. Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007.

Hymes, Robert. Way and Byway: Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of Divinity in Sung and Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Davis, Edward. Society and the Supernatural in Song China, Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2001.

Bol, Peter K. “The ‘Localist Turn’ and ‘Local Identity’ in Later Imperial China.” Late Imperial China, vol. 24, no.2 (2003): 1-50.

Walton, Linda. Academies and Society in Southern Sung China. University of Hawaii Press, 1999.

Ter Haar, Barend J. "Buddhist-Inspired Options: Aspects of Lay Religious Life in the Lower Yangzi from 1100 until 1340." T'oung Pao, vol. 87, no. 1-3 (2001): 92-152.

Gerritsen, Anne. Ji'an Literati and the Local in Song-Yuan-Ming China. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007.

Bol, Peter K. Localizing Learning: The Literati Enterprise in Wuzhou, 1100-1600. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2022.

Late Imperial Era

Watson, James and Evelyn Rawski, eds. Death Ritual in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Kutcher, Norman. Mourning in Late Imperial China: Filial Piety and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Szonyi, Michael. Practicing Kinship: Lineage and Descent in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.

Lu, Weijing. True to Her Word: The Faithful Maiden Cult in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008.

Brook, Timothy. The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Schneewind, Sarah. Community Schools and the State in Ming China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006.

Schneewind, Sarah. Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2018.

Lu, Tina. “If Not Philosophy, What Is Xinxue 心學?” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 80, no.1 (2020): 123-163.

Cheng, Yu-Yin. “The Taizhou School (Taizhou Xuepai) and the Popularization of Liangzhi (Innate Knowledge).” Ming Studies, vol. 60, (2009): 45-65. 

Brook, Timothy. Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 1993.

Brokaw, Cynthia. The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit: Social Change and Moral Order in Late Imperial China. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.

He, Yuming. Home and the World: Editing the “Glorious Ming” in Woodblock-Printed Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013.

Elman, Benjamin A. and Alexander Woodside, eds. Education and Society in Late Imperial China, 1600-1900. Berkeley: University of Berkeley Press, 1994.

Standaert, Nicolas. The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange Between China and Europe. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008.

Ko, Dorothy. Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth Century China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.

Benite, Zvi Ben-Dor. The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005.

Son, Suyoung. Writing for Print: Publishing and the Making of Textual Authority in Late Imperial China. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2018.

Elman, Benjamin A. From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. 

Guo Qitao. Ritual Opera and Mercantile Lineage: The Confucian Transformation of Popular Culture in Late Imperial Huizhou. Stanford University Press, 2005.

Chow, Kai-wing. The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics, and Linage Discourse. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.

Mann, Susan. 1992. “‘Fuxue’ (Women's Learning) by Zhang Xuecheng (1738-1801): China's First History of Women's Culture.” Late Imperial China, vol. 13, no. 1, 40-62.

Miles, Steven B. The Sea of Learning: Mobility and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Guangzhou. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006.

Reynolds, Douglas. East Meets East: Chinese Discover the Modern World in Japan, 1854–1898: A Window on the Intellectual and Social Transformation of Modern China. Ann Arbor: Association for Asian Studies, 2014.

Yeh, Wen-Hsin, ed. Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

Alford, William. To Steal a Book in an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995.