Women in Ancient China by Bret Hinsch

Women in Ancient China by Bret Hinsch

This pioneering book provides a comprehensive survey of ancient Chinese women's history, covering thousands of years from the Neolithic era to China's unification in 221 BCE. For each period-Neolithic, Shang, Western Zhou, and Eastern Zhou-Hinsch explores aspects of female life such as marriage, family life, politics, ritual, and religious roles.

Bret Hinsch has made a number of contributions to the history of gender and sexuality in China, primarily for the ancient and pre-modern erasHis latest book, Women in Ancient China, details the process of growing sexual inequality as it unfolded. This book is a useful synthesis of English and Chinese sources on positions and statues of women during the formative epochs of Chinese history.

* Asian Perspectives *
Women in Ancient China addresses Chinese women’s history from the Neolithic to the Eastern Zhou periods, tackling such aspects of female experience as marriage conventions, divorce, motherhood, religious belief, funerary rites, and modes of political engagement. Hinsch (history, Fo Guang Univ.) deftly employs both textual and material evidence to reconstruct a “simulacrum of the past” that sidesteps anachronistic tendencies such as the “myth of matriarchy,” which the author considers pervasive in the field, as she writes in the introduction. She seeks to illustrate that despite this misplaced emphasis on an imagined, poorly evidenced matriarchy, women nevertheless were dynamic and important figures in early Chinese society. Hinsch makes a major contribution by broadening the body of knowledge about historical figures with newly relevant detail. Most historians are familiar with the royal consort Fu Hao, whose artifact-laden tomb was unearthed in 1976. Hinsch extends the narrative, highlighting Fu Hao's contemporary Fu Jing, a figure whom oracle inscriptions describe as a powerful state administrator. This book is an excellent resource for those in gender and East Asian studies.



Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. * CHOICE *
This is a fine account of the condition of women in ancient China from the emergence of an agricultural way of life to the end of the Bronze Age. Bret Hinsch has assimilated a remarkable amount of information from both archaeological literature and paleographic analyses, incorporating it into a concise and coherent social history of early China. -- Li Feng, Columbia University
With this richly documented volume, Bret Hinsch extends his noted work on women in traditional China all the way back to the Stone Age. His even-handed inquiry and treatment of sources will appeal to readers in many fields and make the book especially suitable for the classroom. -- Paul R. Goldin, University of Pennsylvania
Hinsch fills a huge gap by examining women’s lives in the formative stage of Chinese civilization. His survey is comprehensive, deft, and accessible to undergraduates. Its erudition also makes it an excellent reference work for scholars and graduate students interested in early Chinese women’s history. -- Yiqun Zhou, Stanford University

Bret Hinsch is professor of history at Fo Guang University, Yilan, Taiwan. He is the author of Women in Early Medieval China, Women in Early Imperial China, Women in Imperial China, Masculinities in Chinese History,and The Rise of Tea Culture in China.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781538158340
ISBN 10	1538158345
Title	Women in Ancient China
Author	Bret Hinsch
Series	Asian Voices
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Year published	2021-05-10
Number of pages	226
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.