This pathbreaking work argues that the major intellectual trend in China from the seventeenth through to the early nineteenth century was Confucian ritualism, as expressed in ethics and classical learning.Through the performance of rites, the early Qing scholars believed they could cultivate Confucian virtues and achieve social order. The author shows how Confucian ritualism, with its emphasis on lineage, became a broad movement of social reform that stressed conformity and clearly prescribed rules of behavior, expressed notably in the growing cult of female chastity.

Professor Chow specializes in intellectual and cultural history of Ming Ch'ing China. His current research focuses on the social history of popular religions and intellectual developments in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Selected publications include "Ritual, Cosmology, and Ontology: Chang Tsai's (1020-1077) Moral Philosophy and Neo-Confucian Ethics," Philosophy East and West 48, 2 (April 1993) 201-228; The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics and Lineage Discourse (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994); and "Writing for Success: Examinations Printing, and Intellectual Change in Late Ming China," Late Imperial China 17,1 (June 1996) 120-157. Professor Chow received his doctorate from the University of California, Davis in 1988.