Problems of Han Administration: Ancestral Rites, Weights and Measures, and the Means of Protest.

• Author: Sanft, Charles

Problems of Han Administration: Ancestral Rites, Weights and Measures, and the Means of Protest. By MICHAEL LOEWE. Leiden: BRILL, 2016. Pp. xi + 326. [euro]114, $137.

No scholar has done more than Michael Loewe to shape the modern study of China's early imperial history in the West. Any new publication from him is thus of immediate interest to students of the period, and Problems of Han Administration is no exception. It treats three separate topics: a religious ritual, measures and related matters, and the means by which officials and others in the Han period conveyed their disapproval of government policies and actions. While there is a brief preface to the whole book and a combined index, each of the three sections is independent, down to its list of works cited.

Every aspect of Loewe's treatment is replete with detail. He draws frequently from the standard histories, and not by relying on the database searches and concordances that so many of us now depend on. He has obviously been collecting information by means of careful study of the texts in toto, which permits him to make deep connections, and reminds us of the value of extensive reading in primary sources, if any reminder is necessary. The result draws together relevant received texts of all sorts, which Loewe supplements with the judicious inclusion of archaeological and other information. Loewe specifically disclaims the presence of a unifying theme, but from the perspective of the reader, there does seem to be a connection between them.

The first section of the book concentrates on the religious/ritual observances called zhaomu [phrase omitted], which served to give order to the ruler's sacrifices to his ancestors and to the material objects--tablets and shrines--around which their commemoration concentrated. In addition to zhaomu, Loewe treats other forms of imperial offerings to ancestors, the tombs of emperors, and the famous Mingtang [phrase omitted] as they feature in this context.

The term zhaomu is well known and the general idea of using spatial relations to indicate ancestral relations is familiar. Yet only a real specialist in the practice would be able to read Loewe's treatment without learning a great deal. The bulk of the study is a detailed examination of records relating the shifting practices that bore the label zhaomu and the connotations of the term. The reasons for these developments are, as Loewe paints them, multiple. Zhaomu from the first seems to have...