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The Kongs of Qufu
Christopher S. Agnew
The Descendants of Confucius in Late Imperial China
The remarkable history of China’s most revered ancestral lineage and dukedom The city of Qufu, in north China’s Shandong Province, is famous as the hometown of Kong Qiu (551–479 BCE)—known as Confucius in English and as Kongzi or Kong Fuzi in Chinese. In The Kongs of Qufu, Christopher Agnew chronicles the history of the sage’s direct descendants from the inception of the hereditary title Duke for Fulfilling the Sage in 1055 CE through its dissolution in 1935, after the fall of China’s dynastic system in 1911. Drawing on archival materials, Agnew reveals how a kinship group used genealogical privilege to shape Chinese social and economic history. The Kongs’ power under a hereditary dukedom enabled them to oversee agricultural labor, dominate rural markets, and profit from commercial enterprises. The Kongs of Qufu demonstrates that the ducal institution and Confucian ritual were both a means to reproduce existing social hierarchies and a potential site of conflict and subversion.
CHRISTOPHER S. AGNEW is associate professor of history at the University of Dayton.
September
“This groundbreaking study of the Yansheng Dukes brings together the scattered primary and secondary literature on a unique descent group that was a part of the elite stratum of Chinese society over a period encompassing multiple dynasties. Agnew does a good job of placing the vacillating fortunes of the Kongs within a broader backdrop of events occurring on the empire-wide, regional, and local levels.”—EVELYN S. RAWSKI , Distinguished University Professor Emerita of History, University of Pittsburgh
ASIAN STUDIES / CHINA; HISTORY 272 pp., 4 maps, 2 charts, 4 tables, 6 x 9 in. $30.00s / £23.99 PB / ISBN 9780295745930 $30.00s / £23.99 EB / ISBN 9780295745947 $95.00x / £79.00 HC / ISBN 9780295745923
Also of Interest
Qing Governors and Their Provinces $45.00s PB 9780295992952
State Power in China, 900–1325 $30.00s PB 9780295744292
www.washington.edu/uwpress fall 2019 University of Washington Press