This book is a collection of lectures from the academic seminar series, "Power and Order: Social Governance in Imperial China," organized by the School of History and Culture at Henan University.
It features presentations by renowned scholars, including Yan Buke, Bao Weimin, Zhang Jianguang, and Hou Xudong, among others. The book is divided into three parts. The first part, "The Nature of the Imperial System," examines the development and trends of Chinese history under imperial rule through the lenses of bureaucracy, economy, and society. Part two, "The Working Mechanism of Social Structure," explores how the imperial state operated and covers issues such as public opinion control, financial sustainability, and the primary-level administration and exercise of power. Part three, "The Lives of Officials and Ordinary People," discusses the people within the autocratic state. Traditional historiography often overlooks what people from different social strata and backgrounds did and how they lived. However, this information is critical to understanding history, both the broad contours and the granular detail.
The book will be valuable for scholars and students of social governance and for anyone interested in the hierarchical order of ancient China.