Forgery and Impersonation in Imperial China: Popular Deceptions and the High Qing State

by Mark McNicholas

Overview

Across eighteenth-century China a wide range of common people forged government documents or pretended to be officials or other agents of the state. This examination of case records and law codes traces the legal meanings and social and political contexts of small-time swindles that were punished as grave political transgressions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295806235
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	03/29/2016
Series:	China Program Books
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	280
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Mark McNicholas is associate professor of history at Pennsylvania State University, Altoona College.

Mark McNicholas is associate professor [effective 7/1/14] of history at Penn State Altoona. He received his PhD in history from the University of California at Berkeley in 2007. This is his first book.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Note on Terms and Conventions xiii

Dynastic Periods and Qing Reign Eras xiv

Introduction: Crimes, Commoners, and the State 3

Chapter 1 Meng Guangzu: The Prince's Tour and the Struggle for the Throne 12

Chapter 2 Secret Agents: High Tide and Disappearance, 1723-1800 26

Chapter 3 "En Route to My Post" and Other Tall Tales: Phony Officials on the Move 50

Chapter 4 Phony Cops: The Persistence of Police Impersonation 70

Chapter 5 Forgery: Gaining Trust in a Land of Documents and Seals 95

Chapter 6 Bad Proxies and Bogus Credentials: Forgery and the Purchase of Official Rank 123

Chapter 7 From Politics to Money: Legal Reckoning in the High Qing 142

Conclusion 165

Appendix: List of Archival Case Records 175

Abbreviations 185

Notes 187

Chinese Character Glossary 221

Bibliography 227

Index 241

What People are Saying About This

Par Cassel

"Richly documented with archival sources, Forgery and Impersonation in Imperial China explores the highly advanced and standardized Qing bureaucracy and the inevitable consequences of its imperfect mastery of advanced technologies of power: forgery, counterfeiting, and impersonation, which stand out as aspects of early modernity itself."

Thomas Buoye

"Sheds new light on the interstices among state, society, and economy . . . [and] expands the field of Chinese social and legal history."

Editorial Reviews

"This book is undoubtedly a welcome and significant addition to the scholarship on Qing legal and social history. It will be of great value for anyone interested in late imperial Chinese law, society, culture, and politics."

Journal of Asian Studies