Talons and Teeth
Subtitle: County Clerks and Runners in the Qing Dynasty (Law, Society, and Culture in China)
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: March 7, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9780804737586
Subjects: Asian / Middle Eastern history: c 1500 to c 1900; Modern period, c 1500 onwards; History: World; Local Government; Public Bureaucracy; Politics / Current Events; China; Asia - China; Political History; Political Ideologies - Communism & Socialism; Political Science / General; Government - State & Provincial; 1644-1912; County officials and employees; History; Politics and government
First sentence: THE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) could not have functioned without the clerks and runners of the county yamen.
Description: "During the Qing dynasty, the agents of the imperial state with the greatest immediate power over the lives of commoners were not the eniperor's appointed officials. Rather, they were the clerks and runners of the county yamen, the functionaries at the very lowest level of the state's administrative hierarchy.

Yet despite the critical importance of these people, until now we have known very little about them beyond the portrayals left by Qing high officials and elites, portrayals that emphasize near-universal corruption and venality.".

"Drawing from the archival records of Ba county, Sichuan, Talons and Teeth challenges the simplicity of earlier, one-sided views by taking us inside the county yamen to provide the first detailed look at local administrative practice from the perspective of those who actually carried it out."--BOOK JACKET.