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PRAYING FOR POWER: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China. By Timothy Brook. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1993. xvii, 403 pp. (Illustrations, maps, photos, tables.) US$35.00, cloth. ISBN 0-674-69775-8.
THE NOTABLE REVIVAL of Chinese Buddhism in the late Ming and early Qing (circa 1550-1700 C.E.) can be explained by the idea that Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism were one, but Timothy Brook, in this carefully researched and engagingly written book, argues that it was primarily a result of the growth in population and trade in the late Ming. These forces produced a larger and wealthier gentry class, and, as the number of civil service degrees and official posts remained constant, even good scholars were increasingly unable to distinguish themselves through public service. The upper gentry, therefore, turned to patronizing Buddhist monasteries to differentiate themselves from a burgeoning lower gentry as well as from wealthy merchants and commoners.
In the course of presenting this thesis, the author delves into many aspects of Ming-Qing social history. He begins by providing some historiography, rightly emphasizing the gentry as a "concrete historical formation." He...