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Bibliographic data: Spence, Jonathan D. The Death of Woman Wang. New York: Penguin Books, 1978.
Main argument: Spence's concern in this short, classic book is to illuminate the experience of life in rural China across the Ming/Qing transition of the 17thC, focussing explicitly on a highly local, obscure area that had nothing to recommend it beyond its poverty and the disasters its denizens endured without rebelling, so as to provide a corrective to the generalizing, national perspective of previous histories of rural China at the time.
Historiographical engagement: Spence relies primarily on three primary or nearly primary sources: the 1673 Local History of T'an-cheng (I believe this is a gazette), the memoir-cum-manual written in the 1690s by Huang Liu-hung, who was posted to the county in the 1670s; and the stories of the writer P'u Sung-ling, who lived one county north of T'an-cheng and was writing primarily in the 1670s.
Critical assessment: This is a famous book outside of academia, and deservedly so; it's said that Spence originally wanted to be a novelist, and this book certainly represents an early flowering of his literary talent. This may sound like a backhanded insult, but I don't think there's any inherent conflict between beautiful writing and rigorous scholarship; my one quibble with Spence, always, is how close he plays his authorial cards to his textual vest, so to speak. He says explicitly in the preface that he wants to illuminate life in rural China, and he succeeds brilliantly at that goal, but it's never mentioned again after the first time and he relies always on the readers to bring a large chunk of their own perspective and interpretation to his text. I think that the marriage of Spence's unquestionable style and his willingness to leave so much of the interpretation to his readers is what makes him so popular outside the academy as well as in it, and in this respect this book is typical Spence.
Having read most of my way through R. Bin Wong's China Transformed, what struck me in Spence's narrative were the details of administrative and urban security procedures that, in another context, would seem frankly modern or even, in an sff novel, dystopian. This book certainly provides a handy corrective to an economic historian like Wong or Andre Gunder-Frank, both of whom cover continents and centuries and who tend to underplay any and all human conflict, particularly in China, both as a consequence of their arguments and of their professional training. The casual violence and avarice that was apparently a fact of life in rural China isn't unusual historically speaking, but it is necessary to bear in mind.
Further reading: Spence's other books.
Meta notes: How much do I hate the Wade-Giles transcription system? So, so much. I can't even guess what sounds are being represented half the time, and what the heck is with all the strange punctuation breaking up the syllables? Pinyin forever!
Main argument: Spence's concern in this short, classic book is to illuminate the experience of life in rural China across the Ming/Qing transition of the 17thC, focussing explicitly on a highly local, obscure area that had nothing to recommend it beyond its poverty and the disasters its denizens endured without rebelling, so as to provide a corrective to the generalizing, national perspective of previous histories of rural China at the time.
Historiographical engagement: Spence relies primarily on three primary or nearly primary sources: the 1673 Local History of T'an-cheng (I believe this is a gazette), the memoir-cum-manual written in the 1690s by Huang Liu-hung, who was posted to the county in the 1670s; and the stories of the writer P'u Sung-ling, who lived one county north of T'an-cheng and was writing primarily in the 1670s.
Critical assessment: This is a famous book outside of academia, and deservedly so; it's said that Spence originally wanted to be a novelist, and this book certainly represents an early flowering of his literary talent. This may sound like a backhanded insult, but I don't think there's any inherent conflict between beautiful writing and rigorous scholarship; my one quibble with Spence, always, is how close he plays his authorial cards to his textual vest, so to speak. He says explicitly in the preface that he wants to illuminate life in rural China, and he succeeds brilliantly at that goal, but it's never mentioned again after the first time and he relies always on the readers to bring a large chunk of their own perspective and interpretation to his text. I think that the marriage of Spence's unquestionable style and his willingness to leave so much of the interpretation to his readers is what makes him so popular outside the academy as well as in it, and in this respect this book is typical Spence.
Having read most of my way through R. Bin Wong's China Transformed, what struck me in Spence's narrative were the details of administrative and urban security procedures that, in another context, would seem frankly modern or even, in an sff novel, dystopian. This book certainly provides a handy corrective to an economic historian like Wong or Andre Gunder-Frank, both of whom cover continents and centuries and who tend to underplay any and all human conflict, particularly in China, both as a consequence of their arguments and of their professional training. The casual violence and avarice that was apparently a fact of life in rural China isn't unusual historically speaking, but it is necessary to bear in mind.
Further reading: Spence's other books.
Meta notes: How much do I hate the Wade-Giles transcription system? So, so much. I can't even guess what sounds are being represented half the time, and what the heck is with all the strange punctuation breaking up the syllables? Pinyin forever!