Böcker av Benjamin A. Elman

During China's late imperial period (roughly 1400-1900 CE), men gathered by the millions every two or three years outside official examination compounds sprinkled across China. Only one percent of candidates would complete the academic regimen that would earn them a post in the administrative bureaucracy. Civil Examinations assesses the role of education, examination, and China's civil service in fostering the world's first professional class based on demonstrated knowledge and skill. Civil examinations were instituted in China in the seventh century CE, but in the Ming and Qing eras they were at the center of a complex social web that held together the intellectual, political, and economic life of imperial China. Local elites and the court sought to influence how the government regulated the classical curriculum and selected civil officials. As a guarantor of educational merit, examinations tied the dynasty to the privileged gentry and literati classes--both ideologically and institutionally. China eliminated its classical examination system in 1905. But this carefully balanced, constantly contested piece of social engineering, worked out over centuries, was an early harbinger of the meritocratic regime of college boards and other entrance exams that undergirds higher education in much of the world today.

In A Cultural History of Modern Science in China, Elman has retold the story of the Jesuit impact on late imperial China, circa 1600-1800, and the Protestant era in early modern China from the 1840s to 1900 in a concise and accessible form ideal for the classroom.

Since the mid-19th century, imperial reformers, Republicans, Guomindang party cadres, and Communists have all prioritized science and technology. Elman offers an account of the evolution of native Chinese science over four centuries under the influence of missionaries. In the end, he argues, the Chinese produced modern science on their own terms.

Uses examination records from the Yuan, Ming, and Ch'ing dynasties, 1315-1904, to explore the social, political, and cultural dimensions of the civil examination system, one of the most important institutions in Chinese history. This book considers the intersections between elite social life, popular culture, and religion.