Manslaughter, Markets, and Moral Economy: Violent Disputes over Property Rights in Eighteenth-Century China (repost)

Thomas Buoye examines the impact of large-scale economic change on social conflict in eighteenth-century China. He draws on a large number of documented cases of violent property disputes to recreate the social tensions fostered by the development of property rights, an unprecedented growing population, and the increasing strain on land and resources.

This book challenges the "markets" and "moral economy" theories of economic behavior. Applying the theories of Douglass North for the first time to this subject, Buoye uses an institutional framework to understand seemingly irrational economic choices.

• An in-depth study of social conflict and economic change in eighteenth-century China • Based on a large body of primary sources (homicide reports) which has been little exploited in the past • Re-examines two paradigms for understanding economic change in preindustrial society, utilizing for the first time the theory of Douglass North in the study of Chinese economic history
Contents

List of maps, figures, and tables; List of Qing dynasty emperors' reign dates; List of weights and measures; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Economic change, social conflict, and property rights; 2. 'Population increases daily': economic change during the eighteenth century; 3. 'As before each manage their own property': boundary and water-rights disputes; 4. 'Crafty and obdurate tenants': redemption, rent defaults, and evictions; 5. Temporal and geographic distributions of property-rights disputes in Guangdong; 6. Violence north, west, and south: property-rights disputes in Shandong, Sichuan, and Guangdong; 7. 'You will be rich but not benevolent': changing concepts of legitimacy and violent disputes; 8. Conclusion; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.
Review

‘This carefully researched and well-crafted book illuminates struggles over land and water in eighteenth-century Guangdong, as well as the nature of the legal process in the high Qing period.’ Journal of Asian Studies