WIN $100 GIFT VOUCHERS: PROMOTIONS

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Under the Ancestors' Eyes

Kinship, Status, and Locality in Premodern Korea

Martina Deuchler

$138.95

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

QTY:

English
Harvard University, Asia Center
02 November 2015
Under the Ancestors' Eyes presents a new approach to Korean social history by focusing on the origin and development of the indigenous descent group. Martina Deuchler maintains that the surprising continuity of the descent-group model gave the ruling elite cohesion and stability and enabled it to retain power from the early Silla (fifth century) to the late nineteenth century. This argument, underpinned by a fresh interpretation of the late-fourteenth-century Koryŏ-Chosŏn transition, illuminates the role of Neo-Confucianism as an ideological and political device through which the elite regained and maintained dominance during the Chosŏn period. Neo-Confucianism as espoused in Korea did not level the social hierarchy but instead tended to sustain the status system. In the late Chosŏn, it also provided ritual models for the lineage-building with which local elites sustained their preeminence vis-Ã-vis an intrusive state. Though Neo-Confucianism has often been blamed for the rigidity of late Chosŏn society, it was actually the enduring native kinship ideology that preserved the strict social-status system. By utilizing historical and social anthropological methodology and analyzing a wealth of diverse materials, Deuchler highlights Korea's distinctive elevation of the social over the political.
By:  
Imprint:   Harvard University, Asia Center
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 254mm,  Width: 178mm,  Spine: 41mm
Weight:   1.304kg
ISBN:   9780674504301
ISBN 10:   0674504305
Series:   Harvard East Asian Monographs
Pages:   629
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Primary ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Martina Deuchler is Professor Emerita of Korean Studies in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

  • Nominated for ICAS Book Prize 2017
  • Nominated for James B. Palais Prize 2017

See Also