ASIAN STUDIES
Forging the Golden Urn
China’s War on Smuggling
The Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet
Law, Economic Life, and the Making of the Modern State, 1842–1965
MAX OIDTMANN
PHILIP THAI
“Oidtmann’s work steps deftly into a binary
“Thai weaves together a creative combination of
historiographical struggle and brilliantly shows that
social, political, economic, and legal history. The
everything was not only far more complicated than
combination of a broad theme—illicit economic
either side claims but also far more interesting."
activities interacting with state power—with many
—Johan Elverskog, Southern Methodist University
smaller case studies of smuggling incidents brings the story alive.”
In 1995, China resurrected a Qing-era law mandating that the reincarnations of prominent Tibetan Buddhist monks be identified by drawing lots from a golden urn. Forging the Golden Urn goes in search of the origins of this tradition. Max Oidtmann traces how a Chinese bureaucratic technology—a lottery for assigning administrative posts—was exported to the Tibetan and Mongolian regions of the Qing empire and transformed into a ritual for identifying and authenticating reincarnations. He sheds new light on the role that Tibetan elites played in the production of new religious traditions in the context of Qing colonialism. MAX OIDTMANN
is assistant professor of Asian history at
—Elisabeth Köll, University of Notre Dame
Philip Thai chronicles the vicissitudes of smuggling in modern China—its practice, suppression, and significance—to demonstrate the intimate link between coastal smuggling and the amplification of state power. Thai traces how different regimes sought to police maritime trade and the unintended consequences their campaigns unleashed. China’s War on Smuggling shows how defiance helped the state redefine its power, offering new insights into modern Chinese social, legal, and economic history. PHILIP THAI
is assistant professor of history at
Northeastern University.
Georgetown University Qatar.
$65.00 / £54.95 cloth 978-0-231-18406-9 $64.99 / £54.95 e-book 978-0-231-54530-3
$60.00 / £49.95 cloth 978-0-231-18584-4 $59.99 / £49.95 e-book 978-0-231-54636-2
J U LY 320 pages / 6" x 9"
M AY 400 pages / 6" x 9" / 19 illustrations and 5 maps
H I S TO R Y
H I S TO RY
S T U D I E S O F T H E W E AT H E R H E A D E A S T A S I A N I N S T I T U T E ,
S T U D I E S O F T H E W E AT H E R H E A D E A S T A S I A N I N S T I T U T E ,
CO L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y
CO L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y
All Rights: Columbia University Press
All Rights: Columbia University Press
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