Amazon.com description: Product Description: The essays collected in this volume expose the social forces within China that governed historical change long before the Opium War (1839-1842) began. Instead of focusing on the response of the Ch'ing dynasty to the West in the nineteenth century, the social historians who have collaborated on this book treat the period from the late Ming to the early republic as an integral whole, tracing the evolution of the local gentry, fiscal administration, district government, and social protest from 1600 to 1930. Unlike some symposium volumes, CONFLICT AND CONTROL IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA is not a collection of discrete essays. Rather, it represents a collective effort on the part of social historians, writing with and against one another on common themes, which elevates Chinese history - both local and imperial - to a more sophisticated level than ever before.