Sanctioned Violence in Early China

This book provides new insight into the creation of the Chinese empire by examining the changing forms of permitted violence--warfare, hunting, sacrifice, punishments, and vengeance. It analyzes the interlinked evolution of these violent practices to reveal changes in the nature of political authority, in the basic units of social organization, and in the fundamental commitments of the ruling elite. The work offers a new interpretation of the changes that underlay the transformation of the Chinese polity from a league of city states dominated by aristocratic lineages to a unified, territorial state controlled by a supreme autocrat and his agents. In addition, it shows how a new pattern of violence was rationalized and how the Chinese of the period incorporated their ideas about violence into the myths and proto-scientific theories that provided historical and natural prototypes for the imperial state.

Author: Mark Edward Lewis
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 08/15/1989
Pages: 382
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.31lbs
Size: 9.16h x 6.10w x 0.97d
ISBN13: 9780791400777
ISBN10: 0791400778
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Violence in Society
- History | Asia | General

About the Author
Mark Edward Lewis is University Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Cambridge.

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