This is an important book for those of us interested in state and society in China, particularly during the Ming period, though it offers insights that are not particularly bound to that dynasty. Not only does the book suggest new ways of thinking about, as Schneewind puts it, the relationship between government and the governed (p. 5), but also it offers a methodological model for such explorations that should prove useful to other scholars. By focusing on a discrete subject (community schools), Schneewind is able to look at the questions that interest her over a broad geographic area and a vast temporal span.
Schneewind is fundamentally interested in the dynamic interplay between state and society, without reifying either. She sees community schools as pivotal institutions that articulate this interplay: Schools are, as she writes, “centrally mandated local institutions” (p. 5). Although the reader of this book will learn a great...