"Wide-ranging, exhaustively documented, bold in its interpretations, and attuned simultaneously to questions of intellectual and social history—a rarity in sinological studies—this work will cause a sweeping reassessment of the eighteenth century in modern China's 'Confucian' past. The author's exciting new interpretation of textual scholarship and classical studies both challenges existing theories in modern Chinese intellectual history and adds rich support for new studies of social change at the local level in late imperial times."—Susan Mann, University of California, Davis

"Excellent. . . . Much of Chow's book is devoted to delineating the relationship between scholarly debates on ritual and concrete efforts at lineage building. In this endeavor he pulls together several major strands of recent scholarship on the Ch'ing: work on intellectual trends, elite patterns of dominance, lineage development, ritual, and popular culture."—Journal of Asian Studies

"Chow has produced a work of superb scholarship, fluently written and beautifully researched. . . . One of the landmarks of the current reconstruction of the social philosophy of the Qing dynasty. . . . Chow's book is indispensable. It has illuminating analyses of many mainstream writers, institutions, and social categories in eighteenth-century China which have never previously been examined."—Canadian Journal of History

Chow's monograph moves ritual to center stage in late imperial social and intellectual history, and the author makes a powerful case for doing so. . . . Because the author understands the intellectual history of late Ming and Qing as the history of a movement, or successive movements, of fundamental social reform, he has also made an important contribution to social and political history as these were related to intellectual history."—Journal of Chinese Religion

"Chow's book is an excellent contribution to recent scholarship on the intellectual history of the Confucian tradition and provides a balance for other studies that have emphasized ideas to the exclusion of symbols."—The Historian

"...rich, meticulously researched, and theoretically informed..."—Journal of Interdisciplinary History