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University of California Press

Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule

by Norman A. Kutcher (Author)
Hardcover eBook
Price: $75.00 / £63.00
Publication Date: Jul 2018
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 344
ISBN: 9780520969841
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 12 b/w figures, 1 map
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About the Book

Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule offers a new interpretation of eunuchs and their connection to imperial rule in the first century and a half of the Qing dynasty (1644–1800). This period encompassed the reigns of three of China’s most important emperors, men who were deeply affected by the great eunuch corruption of the fallen Ming dynasty. In this groundbreaking and deeply researched book, the author explores how Qing emperors sought to prevent a return of the harmful excesses of eunuchs and how eunuchs flourished in the face of the restrictions imposed upon them. We meet powerful eunuchs who faithfully served, and in some cases ultimately betrayed, their emperors. We also meet ordinary eunuchs whose lives, punctuated by dramas large and small, provide a fascinating perspective on the Qing palace world.

About the Author

Norman A. Kutcher is Professor of History and Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence in the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. He is the author of Mourning in Late Imperial China: Filial Piety and the State.  

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Preface
Conventions
Conversions
Qing Reigns

Introduction
1. “A Time of Pure Yin”: Forging the Seventeenth–Century Consensus on the Nature of Ming Eunuch Power
2. The Shunzhi Emperor and His Eunuchs: Echoes of the Ming
3. “To Guard against Their Subtle Encroachments”: The Kangxi Emperor’s Regulation of Rank–and–File Eunuchs
4. The Influence of Eunuchs in Kangxi’s Inner Circle
5. Eunuch Loyalties in the Yongzheng Emperor’s Troubled Succession
6. Yongzheng’s Innovative Rules for Regulating Eunuchs
7. The Qianlong Emperor: Shifting the Arc of History
8. Qianlong’s Flawed System of Oversight
9. The World Created by Qianlong and His Eunuchs
Conclusion

Notes
Selected Bibliography
Glossary-Index

Reviews

"Norman Kutcher has written an erudite, ground-breaking and richly documented study that walks us through the community of eunuchs in Beijing as they moved in and out of the Forbidden City, princely households, and the Old Summer Palace in the 17th and 18th centuries . . . Generalists and specialists will discover in Kutcher's study many other fascinating topics, and these include the personalities of the Qing emperors, the physiology of eunuchs, medical history of castration, and the poignant narratives of eunuch survival and suicide."
— China Quarterly
"Norman A. Kutcher provides an insightful, historically sympathetic analysis of the institution of the eunuch in Qing China by investigating the emperors’ efforts to use and control both this institution and the individual eunuchs’ lived experiences. . . . This book is a significant, important contribution to the scholarship on Qing emperorship and eunuch history."
— American Historical Review
"The interpretive analogy suggested by the author presents a realistic and detailed must-read answer to the question of what it meant to be a eunuch during the Qing."
— China Review International
“Norman A. Kutcher takes the eunuch establishment seriously by treating it as a central institution of government. Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule is an important book: it is by far the best study of Chinese eunuchs to date (in any language) and a major contribution to our understanding of the court politics and central government of the Qing dynasty.”—Matthew Sommer, Professor of Chinese History, Stanford University
 
“Kutcher makes the eunuchs a topic not of curiosity, titillation, or cultural subversion, but of economy, statecraft, and ideology. He reminds historians that court edicts are not reportage; his case study of the eunuchs shows that policy in the early and middle Qing period was far more negotiated, far more tentative, far more subject to intervention by interest groups than we might believe.”—Pamela Kyle Crossley, Charles and Elfriede Collis Professor of History, Dartmouth College
 
“The wide range of sources used by Kutcher makes for a compelling narrative of eunuchs coming from all levels of popular society and serving at all levels of the imperial government. We learn, for the first time, why they were essential for the inner and outer courts to function.”—Benjamin A. Elman, Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies and History, Princeton University
 
“Kutcher’s study of palace eunuchs and emperors provides fascinating glimpses of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Qing court life, revealing persistent tensions in the master-servant relationship that challenged the social order.”—Evelyn S. Rawski, Distinguished University Professor Emerita of History, University of Pittsburgh