Guan Yu: The Religious Afterlife of a Failed Hero by Barend J. ter Haar (review)

Abstract

Published by the Harvard-Yenching Institute HJAS 80.2 (2020): 520–526 of their great labor. For example, Yang Fuji 楊復吉 (1747–1820), who compiled five additional installments (ca. 1774–ca. 1816) in Zhaodai congshu after Zhang Chao’s, only had the colophons from the work printed in his lifetime. For the well-educated class, attitudes toward how knowledge should be preserved, presented, and transmitted changed from imperial to post-imperial times. On the other hand, similarities in who the compilers were and how the work of compilation was organized are also striking. Educated individuals, for more than half a century after the fall of the Qing, retained authority over the production and transmission of knowledge, past and present. Taken together, these two well-researched and perceptive books show how, over time, certain uses of print became very different as Chinese society and culture underwent radical changes, while other uses evinced continuities.