Biographical Traditions in Early Modern East Asia, 1500–1900 grew out of wide-ranging conversations about the nature of biography in China and East Asia, as well as a series of panels on biographical materials examined by the editors, authors, and other participating scholars. The book consists of four chapters spanning Ming and Qing China and nineteenth-century Vietnam and Okinawa. Together, the chapters offer an excellent set of case studies that sustain the volume’s broader theoretical discussions—both in the individual chapters and in Ann Waltner’s introduction (Chapter 1)—of biography as a genre in early modern East Asia and as a contemporary mode of historical writing.
Chapter 2, “Theory of Writing Biographies on Women in Eighteenth-Century China: Zhang Xuecheng (1738–1810), Historiography, and Gender,” by Jo-Lan Yi, surveys the paradigms for composing women’s biographies in “standard” or “dynastic” histories throughout imperial Chinese history, as well as the common practices found in Ming- and Qing-era local gazetteers. As the chapter shows, these conventions were challenged by the famous eighteenth-century historian and author Zhang Xuecheng. Without fundamentally rejecting the gender norms of his time, Zhang nevertheless insisted on several practices that highlighted the individuality and subjectivity of the female subjects in the biographies he authored, most of them for gazetteers. First, whenever possible, Zhang recorded women’s given names and surnames, and listed their natal surnames and places of origin before those of their husbands. Second, Zhang resisted the practice of replacing women’s names with stereotypical labels such as “martyred woman” (lienü) or “faithful wife” (jiefu). He also made efforts to include women celebrated for virtues such as talent and filial piety, at a time when chastity had become the overwhelmingly dominant criterion for selecting women for official commemoration and historical writing. Third, Zhang conducted interviews with female subjects themselves and with their families, some of whom came from the lower classes, and incorporated diverse voices and perspectives into his biographies in order to counter the formulaic narratives that dominated mainstream women’s biography. Although Zhang’s efforts were not necessarily carried forward by later generations of gazetteer editors, his treatment of female subjects reveals his sympathetic concern, epistemological commitments, and a subtle but notable departure from prevailing social and cultural norms. It also shows how publicly engaged intellectuals, even while deeply embedded in Confucian ethics, could open meaningful space for rethinking gender, biography, and historical writing.
Chapter 3, “Biography and the Five Cardinal Relationships: A Case Study of the Yang Family of Xindu, Sichuan,” by Ihor Pidhainy, organizes biographical materials by and about a prominent Ming literati family around the five relationships regarded as fundamental in Confucian ethics (wulun): ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger brothers, and friend and friend. Members of the Yang family, including Yang Tinghe, Yang Shen, and Huang E, played important roles in dynastic power transitions or achieved literary fame. The family’s fate was deeply entangled with well-known episodes in Ming history, most notably the Great Rites Controversy of the early sixteenth century. Yet the chapter’s narrative is organized not around politics or literary reputation but around the nature and expression of the five cardinal relationships themselves in family history. These relationships were intertwined and rendered homologous to one another in the maintenance of a hierarchical social order, yet they were also often in tension with one another. The author analyzes and theorizes the five cardinal relationships in their literal and narrow forms, such as father–son; their modified and broader forms, such as parent–child; and their extended forms, such as relations between in-laws, collateral senior and junior relatives, or teachers and students. For nonspecialists, the chapter’s most useful contribution may be the typology it offers of interpersonal relations in premodern China, grounded in its analysis of classical Confucian prescriptions and Ming social norms. At the same time, the author’s engaging treatment of the biographical details and emotional experiences of members and associates of the Yang family across generations makes the chapter an excellent example of modern scholarly biography of a premodern family.
Chapter 4, “Pham Dinh Ho and the Vietnamese Biographical Tradition,” by George Dutton, brings the volume to early modern Vietnam, a world that shared many cultural assumptions and practices with early modern China but also displayed its own distinctive characteristics in the composition and circulation of biographical materials. The chapter focuses on biographies written by Pham Dinh Ho (1768–1839), who wrote not only about others but also extensively about himself, a practice rare among Vietnamese intellectuals of this period. The rich materials Pham Dinh Ho produced about his personal life and his audience with Emperor Minh Mang (r. 1820–1840) enable Dutton to reconstruct the experiences of a prominent cultural figure who was tactful in negotiating with the throne over questions of service or nonservice, yet deeply sentimental in his treatment of intimacy among friends and family members. Dutton pays particular attention to Pham Dinh Ho’s writings on people who were not “important” by the standards of traditional historiography, but who nevertheless left an impression on him at particular moments. The author analyzes Pham Dinh Ho’s practice, especially in his “following the brush” collections, of placing biographies of historical figures—mostly political actors—alongside accounts of people who appear nowhere else in the written record. This practice, Dutton shows, reflects Pham Dinh Ho’s distinctive way of understanding and displaying suffering and change amid political turmoil and social transformation. Overall, the chapter offers two intertwined and well-executed layers of narrative: one is Dutton’s examination of Pham Dinh Ho’s biographical materials as a work of modern scholarly biography; the other is Pham Dinh Ho’s own practice of writing biography as a way of engaging with his times. As the author points out, biography offers historians an effective means of helping their audience relate to events and people from a past that might otherwise feel inaccessible and remote.
Chapter 5, “The Meiji-Qing Dispute over Okinawa: Irredentism and the Ideological Utility of Royal Biography, 1872–1880,” by Mark McNally, concludes the volume with a critical examination of Meiji Japan’s strategic composition and selective use of biographies of Ryukyuan kings. Drawing on both historical works and fictional writings by Ryukyuan and Japanese authors, Japanese politicians highlighted the biological descent of a particular Ryukyuan dynastic household from the Japanese imperial lineage and, by extension, used claims of linguistic and ancestral commonality to justify the Japanese annexation of Ryukyu/Okinawa. McNally contrasts the Japanese position with two alternative modes of historical argument. The first was the Qing emphasis on the Ryukyu Kingdom’s long-standing tributary relationship with China and on Chinese cultural influence over the islands. The second was the Ryukyu-centered narrative produced by Ryukyuan scholars, in which Japan played an important, though not decisive, role. While McNally shows how biographies, especially genealogies, were effectively employed by the Japanese government in persuading the American mediator Ulysses S. Grant to side with Japan’s irredentist claims over Okinawa, he treats the political use of biography as only one aspect of a larger diplomatic process. These negotiations eventually led Grant to propose that Japan divide Ryukyu with China, a proposal that failed because the Qing government refused to accept it. In other words, the relationship between modern politics and the modern creation and manipulation of premodern biographical materials was—and remains—multilayered and complex. It involved various actors, motivations, ideologies, and practical geopolitical concerns, all intertwined within the arenas of domestic and international politics.
The volume is headed by Ann Waltner’s highly analytical introduction. The introduction not only surveys the biographical traditions of premodern East Asia and scholarly treatments of them but also critically engages the chapters through core concepts such as the five cardinal relationships, the emotional connections conveyed in and through biography, and the links between polities and cultural traditions in East Asia. Overall, this volume is an important contribution to the history of early modern China and early modern East Asia. It is also a valuable tool for classroom instruction, a useful reference for scholarly research, and an enjoyable read. As a reader, I sensed a thread running throughout the chapters: biography as a vehicle for the construction, negotiation, and contestation of power across familial, literary, and political boundaries. I wish that the editors and contributors had articulated this thread more explicitly in relation to the individual chapters. This, however, is merely a minor quibble about an excellent scholarly volume, and also an expression of my own research interests.
