[Commlist] new book: Circulating the Code: Print Media and Legal Knowledge in Qing China

*Circulating the Code***

Print Media and Legal Knowledge in Qing China

*Ting Zhang***

*_https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/9780295747156/circulating-the-code/_*

*__*

*Receive a 20% discount online:*

*CSLS2020*

Contrary to longtime assumptions about the insular nature of imperial 
China’s legal system, /Circulating the Code/demonstrates that in the 
Qing dynasty (1644–1911) most legal books were commercially published 
and available to anyone who could afford to buy them. Publishers not 
only extended circulation of the dynastic code and other legal texts but 
also enhanced the judicial authority of case precedents and unofficial 
legal commentaries by making them more broadly available in convenient 
formats. As a result, the laws no longer represented privileged 
knowledge monopolized by the imperial state and elites. Trade in 
commercial legal imprints contributed to the formation of a new legal 
culture that included the free flow of accurate information, the rise of 
nonofficial legal experts, a large law-savvy population, and a high 
litigation rate.

Comparing different official and commercial editions of the Qing Code, 
popular handbooks for amateur legal practitioners, and manuals for 
community legal lectures, Ting Zhang demonstrates how the dissemination 
of legal information transformed Chinese law, judicial authority, and 
popular legal consciousness.

*Ting Zhang*is assistant professor of history at the University of Maryland.

Combined Academic Publishers

*University of Washington Press**| April 2020 | 256pp | 9780295747156 | 
PB | £22.99**

*Price subject to change.

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