Outcasts and pariahs are known to exist in several Asian countries but have usually not been associated with traditional Chinese society. Chinese Outcasts shows that some Chinese were in fact treated as outcasts or semi-outcasts. They include the boat people of South China and certain less well-known groups in different regions, including the "musicians' households" and the "fallen people". The reasons for their inferior status and perceived impurity is examined, as well as the intent behind a series of imperial emancipation edicts in the 1720s and 30s. The edict provided an escape route from inferior legal status but failed to put a quick end to customary social discrimination.

The 1949 Communist Revolution marked a period of earthshaking change in China. Political, economic, ideological, and cultural movements galvanized the country, culminating in dramatic social transformations at all levels, including the persecution of hundreds of thousands of the country’s citizens. Based on normally inaccessible records of confessions, interrogations, trial transcripts, and depositions, Eight Outcasts tells the stories of eight victims of the Maoist dictatorship. It introduces readers to individuals accused of infractions such as corruption, political wrong thinking, homosexuality, illicit sexual activity, foreign ties, or “historical problems” (connections to the former Kuomintang regime) in the period between the revolution and Mao’s death in 1976. Each chapter brings stories of China’s voiceless citizens to light, broadening our knowledge of this important transitional period.

Introduction : empires and indigenous peoples, global transformation and the limits of international society -- From wet diplomacy to scorched earth : the Taiwan expedition, the Guardline and the Wushe rebellion -- The long durée and the short circuit : gender, language and territory in the making of indigenous Taiwan -- Tangled up in red : textiles, trading posts and ethnic bifurcation in Taiwan -- The geobodies within a geobody : the visual economy of race-making and indigeneity

Jamey Barlowe has been crippled since childhood, the result of being born on the Moon. He lives his life in a wheelchair, only truly free when he is in the water. But then Jamey's father sends him, along with five other kids, back to the Moon to escape a political coup d'etat that has occurred overnight in the United States. Moreover, one of the other five refugees is more than she appears. Their destination is the mining colony, Apollo. Jamey will have to learn a whole new way to live, one that entails walking for the first time in his life. It won't be easy and it won't be safe. But Jamey is determined to make it as a member of Lunar Search and Rescue, also known as the Rangers. This job is always risky, but could be even more dangerous if the new U.S. president makes good on her threat to launch a military invasion. Soon Jamey is front and center in a political and military struggle stretching from the Earth to the Moon. From the Hardcover edition.

In Zinc for Coin and Brass Hailian Chen offers the first comprehensive history of Chinese zinc over the long eighteenth century. This book covers a wide range of topics including Qing China’s political economy, material culture, environment, technology, and society.

A reconstruction of the Chinese sky of two thousand years ago, based on analysis of the first star catalogue in China and other sources. Presented in six well-sized star maps for 100 BC, it is especially important for the history of astronomy. The Han sky, with five times more constellations than Ptolemy knew, reflects diverse human activities. The way in which constellations were grouped discloses a systematic cosmology, uniting universe and the state. The work of the three Han schools is comparable to Ptolemy's Almagest. With three detailed Appendices on the constellations of the three schools, well illustrated to demonstrate the relation between sky and human society, this book is valuable not only for astronomy historians and sinologists, but in general for scholars interested in the ancient cultures of Asia.