Chinas Examination Hell The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China

Freemasons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias-why did millions of nineteenth-century American men belong to these and other secret orders? In this engrossing study, Mark C. Carnes argues that fraternal rituals created a fantasy world antithetical to prevailing religious practices, gender roles, and institutional structures, offering a male religious counterculture that opposed an increasingly liberal and feminized Protestantism. An] original and compelling study. . . . Making use of anthropology as well as social history, Carnes is probably the first outsider to take these rituals seriously. . . . Playing the role of a graceful, controlling . . . guide into these mysteries, Carnes slowly unveils his thesis, which itself has several layers of mystery.-David Leverentz, New England QuarterlyAn imaginative fusion of social and intellectual history. . . . Carnes's work shows the true depth of nineteenth-century male sexual anxiety and hostility toward women. In this compelling book, Carnes opens new approaches to the study of gender and helps us better understand the reorientation of American culture at the turn of the century. -Donald Yacovone, Journal of American HistoryThis is an important monograph in the field of men's history. . . . This is ambitious conceptualization-the book is a refreshingly bold statement. . . . I find most of its conclusions accurate.-Peter N. Stearns, Journal of Ritual StudiesThe breadth and thoroughness of this book is impressive. Carnes draws on the literature of the time, religious history and theology, child rearing and developmental psychology, women's history and gender studies, and structural and cultural anthropology.-Rosamund Orde-Powlett, Literary Review

Written by one of the foremost historians of Chinese institutions, this book focuses on China's civil service examination system in its final and most elaborate phase during the Ch'ing dynasty. All aspects of this labyrinthine system are explored: the types of questions, the style and form in which they were to be answered, the problem of cheating, and the psychological and financial burdens of the candidates, the rewards of the successful and the plight of those who failed. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including Chinese novels, short stories, and plays, this thought provoking and entertaining book brings to vivid life the testing structure that supplied China's government bureaucracy for almost fourteen hundred years.
"Professor Miyazaki's informative work is concerned with a system. . . that was, in effect, . . . the basic institution of Chinese political life, the real pillar which supported the imperial monarchy, the effective vehicle for the aspirations and ambitions of the ruling class. Imperial China without the examination system for the past thousand years and more would have developed in an entirely different way and might not have endured as the continuing form of government over a huge empire."--Pacific Affairs
"The most comprehensive narrative treatment in any language of this] enduring achievement of Chinese civilization."--American Historical Review