Among the large caches of private documents discovered and collected in China, few rival the Huizhou sources for the insight they provide into Chinese local society and economy over the past millennium. Having spent decades researching these exceptionally rich sources, Joseph P. McDermott presents in two volumes his findings about the major social and economic changes in this important prefecture of south China from around 900 to 1700. In this first volume, we learn about village settlement, competition among village religious institutions, premodern agricultural production, the management of land and lineage, the rise of the lineage as the dominant institution, and its members' application of commercial practices to local forestry operations. This landmark study of religious life and economic activity, of lineage and land, and of rural residents and urban commercial practices provides a compelling new framework for understanding a distinctive path of economic and social development for premodern China and beyond.

'The history of South China is impossible to consider or to write without a historical map of its lineages, as eminent historian Joseph P. McDermott shows in his comprehensive study of rural Huishou, Anhui. The Making of a New Rural Order in South China is a brilliant example of how such work is done as history writing.'

Venus Viana Source: International Journal of Asian Studies

'Historians have long been aware that Huizhou, an isolated prefecture in the mountainous interior of modern Anhui province, has produced a body of documentation that is almost unparalleled in its coverage, detailing history at a local level beginning from the late Tang Dynasty through the twentieth century. The documents have attracted the attention of scholars for many decades, but now Joseph P. McDermott has used them to present a unique and incredibly valuable narrative of history at its most local level … This is an important book grounded in meticulous research …'

Hugo Clark Source: The American Historical Review