Crime and Punishment in Ancient China

Crime and Punishment in Ancient China
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2018-02
Genre:
ISBN: 9789745241534

Translation of an ancient Chinese manual on juriprudence, including details of many trials and judgments for crimes both high and petty.

Murder in Ancient China

Murder in Ancient China
Author: Robert van Gulik
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 45
Release: 2013-12-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 022614688X

Two short mysteries—“The Murder on the Lotus Pond” and “Murder on New Year’s Eve”—featuring seventh-century Chinese detective Judge Dee. Judge Dee—Confucian Imperial magistrate, inquisitor, and public avenger, based on a famous statesman—was Dutch diplomat and Chinese cultural historian Robert van Gulik’s (1910–67) lasting invention. A welcome addition to the elite canon of fictional detectives, the Judge steps in to investigate homicide, theft, and treason and restores order to the golden age of the Tang Dynasty. In Murder in Ancient China’s first story, we watch as Judge Dee attempts to solve the mystery of an elderly poet murdered by moonlight in his garden pavilion; in the second, set on the eve of the Chinese New Year, the Judge makes two rare mistakes—will peril result? Praise for the Judge Dee Mystery series “Delightful novels, so scrupulously in the classic Chinese manner yet so nicely equipped with everything to satisfy the modern reader.” —The New York Times “Entertaining, instructive and oddly impressive, Judge Dee, the officers of his tribunal and the people with whom he and they are concerned are interesting folk, and the world of crime, mystery, violence, lust, corruption and ceremony in which they move is formidably picturesque.” —Times Literary Supplement

The Chinese Nail Murders

The Chinese Nail Murders
Author: Robert Hans van Gulik
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 1977-11-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780226848631

Judge Dee and his helpers investigate a series of murders despite pressure to solve them quickly.

Murder and Adultery in Late Imperial China

Murder and Adultery in Late Imperial China
Author: Marinus Johan Meijer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 156
Release: 1991
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN:

In this publication the development is traced of two sections of the chapter on "Homicide" of the penal code of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), Murder and Homicide of an Adulterer. The former deals with premeditated homicide where there is no difference in status, social or family relations between murderer and victim, while in the latter we find the husband who kills his wife and her paramour when caught in the act. In that case, the husband was immune from prosecution, provided that he commited the act at the time and at the site. The first section developed in a clear and intelligent way, with in general some logical provisions being added from the beginning till the end of the dynasty. The second section, however, was enriched by 34 additional articles through legislation and judicial practice, which with a view to promoting moral purity in society, gradually circumvented the original restrictions to the husband's fury. Consequently, by accentuating the husband's important status and for the sake of maintaining the established hierarchy in society, that section changed into a bad and cruel part of the law, turning the husband's behaviour from an excusable exception into morally justified conduct, and likewise the woman's misbehaviour into a mortal sin. This has all been confirmed by the motivation of the legislation and sentences of the cases.

The Chinese Lake Murders

The Chinese Lake Murders
Author: Robert Van Gulik
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2005-02-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0060751401

In the third installment of Robert Van Gulik's classic ancient Chinese mystery series based on historical court records, magistrate, lawyer, and detective Judge Dee has his work cut out for him. Set in 666 A.D., in the hidden city of Han-yuan, sixty miles from the imperial capital of ancient China, Dee is sent to investigate a case of embezzlement of government funds. But things are about to get more complicated for the great detective. Just before he is about to take leave of Han-yuan, the popular courtesan Almond Blossom disappears, and then a bride who dies on her wedding night also disappears from her coffin -- her body replaced with that of a murdered man. To make matters worse, Judge Dee is confronted with the dangerous sect called the White Lotus.

The Washing Away of Wrongs

The Washing Away of Wrongs
Author: Ci Song
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 198
Release: 1981
Genre: History
ISBN: 0892648007

An English translation of the oldest extant book on forensic medicine in the world

Sacred Killing

Sacred Killing
Author: Anne Porter
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2012-09-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1575066769

What is sacrifice? How can we identify it in the archaeological record? And what does it tell us about the societies that practice it? Sacred Killing: The Archaeology of Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East investigates these and other questions through the evidence for human and animal sacrifice in the Near East from the Neolithic to the Hellenistic periods. Drawing on sociocultural anthropology and history in addition to archaeology, the book also includes evidence from ancient China and a riveting eyewitness account and analysis of sacrifice in contemporary India, which engage some of the key issues at stake. Sacred Killing vividly presents a variety of methods and theories in the study of one of the most profound and disturbing ritual activities humans have ever practiced.

Between Birth and Death

Between Birth and Death
Author: Michelle King
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014-01-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780804785983

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.

The Chinese Gold Murders

The Chinese Gold Murders
Author: Robert Hans Van Gulik
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 214
Release: 1979
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780226848648

A series of bizarre and intriguing murders greet young Judge Dee when he accepts the post of magistrate of Peng-lai, a port city on the northeast coast of Shantung Province in seventh-century Imperial China

Midnight in Peking

Midnight in Peking
Author: Paul French
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2012-04-24
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1101580380

Winner of the both the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the CWA Non-Fiction Dagger from the author of City of Devils Chronicling an incredible unsolved murder, Midnight in Peking captures the aftermath of the brutal killing of a British schoolgirl in January 1937. The mutilated body of Pamela Werner was found at the base of the Fox Tower, which, according to local superstition, is home to the maliciously seductive fox spirits. As British detective Dennis and Chinese detective Han investigate, the mystery only deepens and, in a city on the verge of invasion, rumor and superstition run rampant. Based on seven years of research by historian and China expert Paul French, this true-crime thriller presents readers with a rare and unique portrait of the last days of colonial Peking.