Ancient Greek Athletics

kind of cultural revolution that propelled the West ahead of China in the seventeenth century. Chow shows that although China possessed the technology of movable type, the predominant use of wood-block printing was a rational choice in terms of facility and cost of printing books in China. Indeed, as Chow demonstrates, the commercialization of book publishing at this time vastly expanded cultural production and came to challenge the imperial monopoly over literature and orthodox culture. This approach, in tum, leads to an understanding of the cultural and social role of the shishang, defined as literati-merchants-businessmen. The expanding paratextual space in the public realm created by commercial publishing provided otherwise unemployed civil service examination candidates opportunities for commercial enterprise in publishing as well as wider publication outlets. The dual career trajectories of shishang as both writedi terat i and commercial publishers, however, created an unresolved tension. Finally, Chow argues, the commodification of literary activity undermined the state’s ideological control over cultural orthodoxy through the examination curriculum by offering greatly expanded pluralistic interpretations of the classics. This monograph is part of a growing specialized literature on late imperial Chinese scholar-official-gentry culture. The most speculative aspect of the author’s argument is his discussion of the costs of production and book prices, where versions of the phrase “it is reasonable to suggest” recur unnervingly frequently. Still, as a contribution to the so far relatively unexplored economic and material history of this field, this monograph offers fresh insights.