Crisis and transformation in seventeenth-century China

by Chun-shu Chang

"The seventeenth century was a time of great social and political upheaval in China. In Crisis and Transformation in Seventeenth-Century China, Chun-shu and Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang offer a detailed and engaging analysis of society, culture, and the state in China during this critical period in its history." "The main thread of the book follows the life and works of a remarkable figure of the period, Li Yu (1611-80), whose vast array of accomplishments and experiences mirror seventeenth-century China in all its complexity and excitement. Li Yu's China was a world of unprecedented changes in almost all spheres of life. A thriving commercial and industrial economy, stupendous population growth, and the emergence of a new age of science and technology were accompanied by intense urbanization, radical views on money, wealth, and luxury, liberal attitudes toward sexuality, and developments which would change the nature of the literary and intellectual world. The Changs' exhaustive exploratio