Overview

Female infanticide is a social practice often closely associated with Chinese culture. Journalists, social scientists, and historians alike emphasize that it is a result of the persistence of son preference, from China's ancient past to its modern present. Yet how is it that the killing of newborn daughters has come to be so intimately associated with Chinese culture? Between Birth and Death locates a significant historical shift in the representation of female infanticide during the nineteenth century. It was during these years that the practice transformed from a moral and deeply local issue affecting communities into an emblematic cultural marker of a backwards Chinese civilization, requiring the scientific, religious, and political attention of the West. Using a wide array of Chinese, French and English primary sources, the book takes readers on an unusual historical journey, presenting the varied perspectives of those concerned with the fate of an unwanted Chinese daughter: a late imperial Chinese mother in the immediate moments following birth, a male Chinese philanthropist dedicated to rectifying moral behavior in his community, Western Sinological experts preoccupied with determining the comparative prevalence of the practice, Catholic missionaries and schoolchildren intent on saving the souls of heathen Chinese children, and turn-of-the-century reformers grappling with the problem as a challenge for an emerging nation.

Full Product Details

9780804785983

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Reviews

Michelle King has written a fascinating and well-researched account of how infanticide came to be viewed as a characteristically Chinese problem. She examines how infanticide was viewed by participants, as well as local and foreign observers, and explains how Chinese infanticide has had such a strong grip on our minds on the basis of remarkably little evidence other than condemnation of the practice. The book is a pleasure to read, with captivating stories, focusing on individuals who have shaped our ideas about China. It would be an excellent resource for undergraduate teaching and discussion. --Henrietta Harrison, University of Oxford

Offers riveting discussions of what infanticide meant to mothers and other women in nineteenth-century China, and to elite men who tried to prevent the practice. --Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley, San Diego State University

Author Information

Michelle T. King is Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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