Rituals of Recruitment in Tang China ─ Reading an Annual Programme in the Collected Statements by Wang Dingbao 870-940

In a reading of one man's hindsight on the social life of civil service recruitment during the Tang dynasty (618-907), Moore (art and material culture of China, Leiden U.) translates and analyzes documents that late Tang scholar Wang Dingbao (870-940) preserved after the dynasty's collapse. He finds that Wang shows the practical processes of examinations not as sequestered feats of intellectual performance, but as visible acts of social display, and notes that a description of such examination ritual is not paralleled in any other source in the Tang and Five Dynasties. Among the steps of the dance are selections in the prefectures, ceremonies of induction, experiences on the examination ground, ceremonies of gratitude, and celebrations of success. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Oliver Moore, Ph.D. (1993), Chinese History, University of Cambridge, is Lecturer in the Art and Material Culture of China at Leiden University. His publications on aspects of Chinese writing and painting includeReading the Past: Chinese (British Museum Press, 2000).