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This book examines how the Ming state transformed the multi-ethnic society of Yunnan into a province. Yunnan had remained outside the ambit of central government when ruled by the Dali kingdom, 937-1253, and its foundation as a province by the Yuan regime in 1276 did not disrupt Dali kingdom style political, social and religious institutions. It was the Ming state in the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries through its institutions for military and civilian control which brought about profound changes and truly transformed local society into a province. In contrast to other studies which have portrayed Yunnan as a non-Han frontier region waiting to be colonised, this book, by focusing on changes in local society, casts off the idea of Yunnan as a border area far from civilisation. Chapters 1, 2, and 5 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Located in southwest China, Yunnan Province is the centre of a growing focus on ecotourism. This guide covers Yunnan's many attractions including the provincial capital of Kunming, legendary Yangtze and Mekong rivers, Buddhist stupas and Tibetan border monasteries.
In a mist-shrouded valley on China's invisible border with Tibet is a place known as the 'Kingdom of Women', where a small tribe called the Mosuo lives in a cluster of villages that have changed little in centuries. This is one of the last matrilineal societies on earth, where power lies in the hands of women. All decisions and rights related to money, property, land and the children born to them rest with the Mosuo women, who live completely independently of husbands, fathers and brothers, with the grandmother as the head of each family. A unique practice is also enshrined in Mosuo tradition - that of 'walking marriage', where women choose their own lovers from men within the tribe but are beholden to none.
Twentieth century China has seen local societies undergo unprecedented transformations accompanied by a remarkable continuity in state practice. In this path-breaking study of two ethnically different communities, the matrilineal Mosuo and the patrilineal Han, in northwest Yunnan province, the author traces cultural change from a historical perspective in relation to the ecological environment and political systems. The treatment of state penetration into local society challenges the conventional binary narratives of state-society and Han/non-Han relations. With its interdisciplinary approach, the book enriches the anthropology of China by framing ethnicity issues in terms of local politics and inter-relationships between levels of government, and at the same time extends the analytical perimeter of the study of the Chinese state to the national periphery.
C. Patterson Giersch provides a groundbreaking challenge to the China-centered narrative of the Qing conquest through comparative frontier history and a pioneering use of indigenous sources. He focuses on the Tai domains of China's Yunnan frontier, part of the politically fluid borderlands, where local, indigenous leaders were crucial actors in an arena of imperial rivalry. Patterns of acculturation were multi-directional. Both Qing and Tai created a hybrid frontier government that was tested as Burma and Siam extended influence into the region. As Qing and Chinese migrants gained greater political and economic control in borderland communities, indigenes adopted select Chinese ways. Chinese...
The first comprehensive analytical treatment of warlordism in twentieth-century China, this book approaches regional militarism as a generic phenomenon of Chinese politics in the most complex and chaotic era of recent Chinese history. After describing the emergence of militarist regimes after the death of Yuan Shih-k'ai in 1916, the author analyzes their membership, goals, capabilities, and sources of cohesion, in the process presenting new information on their organization, methods of recruitment, quality of training, types of weapons, tactical and strategic concepts, and means of financing. On the strength of this information, he offers a convincing explanation I balance-of-power terms for...
This is volume III of six in a series on the Sociology of East Asia. Originally published in 1949, Study of Rural Economy in Yunnan.
This is a varied and wide-ranging collection of essays by Yi and foreign scholars on the history, traditional society, and modern social changes among the 7 million Yi people of Southwest China.
The first historical examination of a Muslim-led rebellion in mid-nineteenth-century China which carved out an independent sultanate along China's southwestern border lasting nearly seventeen years.