The author suggests an explanation why institutional histories have gone out of fashion: they tend to depict their objects as static. Here, the author uses the Board of Rites (libu) as an index of the historicity—plasticity, responsiveness, growth, or attenuation—of institutions and as a case study of the distinct phases of state building for the Qing Empire. The author regards the Board of Rites as central—and possibly indispensable—to the maintenance of internal government coherence, the integration of culturally diverse peoples in a single instrument of conquest and occupation, and the construction of a code of legitimacy, while negotiating the thorny problems of struggles for power among imperial relatives, military leaders, and civil officials.

The process by which the empire legitimated itself to its agents was developmental and inseparable from state building, and the author presents a clear chronology of political growth and functional change. The Chinese concept of li—in different contexts meaning ritual, propriety, or rectitude—was shaped into a distinctly Qing imperial service ethos, capable of transcending (if not nullifying) conflicting cultural expectations of affiliation and, above all, state legitimacy. The author argues that this adapted li became the vehicle allowing individuals to articulate their allegiance to the Qing state, and the universal virtue that justified Qing rule.

Consonant with its curating of li, the Board of Rites was given fairly comprehensive jurisdiction over all forms of contact with the emperor or with the extensions of his political persona—entry into his space, imperially sponsored meals and entertainment, the appearance of his representatives and relatives, and the conduct of religious rituals (here, mainly Chinese rituals are of interest). Consequently, the author's research covers a huge portion of the daily material life of the court, officials of the capital, and the aristocracy. Rituals (including some of the earliest, founding rituals of the khanate and then the empire), music, dance, the use of horses and elephants in ceremony and games, and dress are vividly brought to life. Even revisions in the way the court allowed these things to be described are detailed. For this alone, the book is of great value to Qing specialists and students of early modern empire.

The argument for the centrality of the Board of Rites is slightly impeded by the omission here of the full extent of its jurisdiction. The Taichangsi, for instance, is mentioned only once, and the Guanglusi not at all, though their relationship to the Board of Rites—at times direct and at others indirect—was always intimate and kept the Board of Rites central to internal tribute, political relations with governors and gentry, and foreign envoys. Similarly, medicine and some aspects of animal husbandry were for at least some time under the Board of Rites, again bespeaking the importance of the Board to the nourishment and well-being of the emperor and his enterprises. The treatment of the “Imperial Clan Court” (zongren fu) is both crisp and substantial, but the Imperial Household Department (neiwu fu) and the Lifan yuan, which both occasionally traded duties with the Board of Rites, are functionally absent.

The author is certainly successful in bringing to the Board of Rites the dynamism and historicity that are found missing in some (surely not all) institutional histories, and it is surprising that the same nuance does not extend to some basic components of the argument itself. He flatly insists that li equates with Manchu dorolon (and its root, doro) and notes that dorolon probably first appeared in writing as a neologism in 1631. This would seem to strengthen the general argument for li as an organizing and legitimating concept particular to the Qing, but it is consigned to an endnote. The maze of connections of doro with meanings more related to Chinese dao than to li, and of dorolon to shamanic rites, are not obviously compatible with the autho's argument and do not figure in the discussion. The author states early in the book that the Qing “appropriated” li (the reader adds, rather than translated it) and obviously adapted it, but does not relate this to the neologism dorolon or the protection in imperial publications of the older and less political meanings of doro.

Something similar is evinced when the author implies that “ethnic” considerations affected the evolution of the Board of Rites, or power struggles within the Qing state. The author appears to assume this is self-evident. This is particularly true in discussion of all dimensions of the imperial institution—with law code, etiquette, historiography, dress, and so on, branded across Eurasia as “Han” since the fourth century—in terms of ethics and ethnicity, without resolving whether the issue is rule in the Chinese style, or rule in the only known imperial style. The Manchus are without qualification identified as re-named Jurchens (with illustration), sweeping aside the complexities behind the introduction of “Manchu” in 1635. “Mongols” is used monolithically to describe a variety of populations and status cohorts, who in this undifferentiated representation are given a surprisingly slight role in shaping the early Qing state; the puzzles of how törö might alloy with li are not approached (but see Francis Woodman Cleaves and Johan Elverskog). There is a gulf between the author and readers who do not accept “ethnicity” as a primary, causative force in history. This not only interferes a bit with the long analytical passages in the book—in which ethnicity is an objective force changing the subjective institutions of the Qing Empire—but also somewhat threatens the longevity of the argument.

Whatever vulnerabilities are found in the argument will not overshadow the distinct value of this contribution. It is a very thoroughly researched, extremely well-constructed, and stimulating analysis of how a core Qing institution bridged the political gulf between elite Manchu and Chinese officials to create a stable, effective imperial government. It will take its place alongside the enduring institutional studies of Qing conquest and rule, and will open more than one new path for further study.