Research Catalog

Title

Uncertainty in the empire of routine : the administrative revolution of the eighteenth-century Qing state / Maura D. Dykstra.

Author

Dykstra, Maura D.

Publication

• Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Asia Center, 2022.
• ©2022

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxxv, 262 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

"This book uncovers the administrative revolution of the eighteenth-century Qing state. It begins in the mid-seventeenth century with what seemed, at the time, like straightforward policies to clean up the bureaucracy: a regulation about deadlines here, a requirement about reporting standards there. Over the course of a hundred years, the central court continued to demand more information from the provinces about local administrative activities. By the middle of the eighteenth century, unprecedented amounts of data about local offices throughout the empire existed. The result of this information coup was a growing discourse of crisis and decline. Gathering data to ensure that officials were doing their jobs properly, it turned out, repeatedly exposed new issues requiring new forms of scrutiny. Slowly but surely, the thicket of imperial routines and standards binding together local offices, provincial superiors, and central ministries shifted the very epistemological foundations of the state. A vicious cycle arose whereby reporting protocols implemented to solve problems uncovered more problems, necessitating the collection of more information. At the very moment that the Qing knew more about itself than ever before, the central court became certain that it had entered an age of decline"--

Series Statement

Harvard East Asian monographs ; 452

Uniform Title

Harvard East Asian monographs ; 52.

Alternative Title

Administrative revolution of the eighteenth-century Qing state

Subject

• 1600-1912
• Local government > China > History > 17th century
• Local government > China > History > 18th century
• Government information > China > History > 17th century
• Government information > China > History > 18th century
• Local government
• Politics and government
• Qing Dynasty (China)
• China > History > Qing dynasty, 1644-1912
• China > Politics and government > 1644-1912
• China

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Prologue: Qing History / Qing Archive -- Introduction -- Part I Building the Empire of Routine -- Early Qing Legal Institutions -- Beyond Fact -- Imperial Routines in the Local Archive -- Part II After the Unexpected Administrative Revolution -- Ruling the Empire of Routine -- When the Problem Is the Solution

Call Number

JFE 22-4120

ISBN

• 9780674270954
• 0674270959

LCCN

2022003064

OCLC

1295805650

Author

Dykstra, Maura D., author.

Title

Uncertainty in the empire of routine : the administrative revolution of the eighteenth-century Qing state / Maura D. Dykstra.

Publisher

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Asia Center, 2022.

Copyright Date

©2022

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Harvard East Asian monographs ; 452

Harvard East Asian monographs ; 52.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chronological Term

1600-1912

Research Call Number

JFE 22-4120