The Man Awakened From Dreams

by Harrison, Henrietta

• ISBN13: 9780804750684
• ISBN10: 0804750688
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-11-15
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

In this beautifully crafted study of one emblematic life, Harrison addresses large themes in Chinese history while conveying with great immediacy the textures and rhythms of everyday life in the countryside in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Liu Dapeng was a provincial degree-holder who never held government office. Through the story of his family, the author illustrates the decline of the countryside in relation to the cities as a result of modernization and the transformation of Confucian ideology as a result of these changes. Based on nearly 400 volumes of Liu's diary and other writings, the book illustrates what it was like to study in an academy and to be a schoolteacher, the pressures of changing family relationships, the daily grind of work in industry and agriculture, people's experience with government, and life under the Japanese occupation.

Author Biography

Henrietta Harrison is Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Preface	1	(8)
Writing	9	(12)
The Confucian Scholar	21	(30)
The Filial Son	51	(32)
The Representative of the People	83	(30)
The Merchant	113	(23)
The Farmer	136	(23)
Epilogue	159	(14)
Notes	173	(18)
Bibliography	191	(12)
Index	203