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of different forms of “lineage society". The final chapter assesses his findings in relation to prevailing theories put forth by anthropologists and historians of China.
History-cum-anthropology as it is, the worth of this book can only be seen accurately in terms of whether all this history (or anthropology) makes for good anthropology. Bolstered by the admissions of the author himself, I see no other way of assessing faithfully the merits of Faure's ambitious thesis. Incidentally, I should mention that, assuming that the reader can manage to digest the mass of names, places, dates that fill the entire book, it is not easy to comprehend at first reading the gist of his overall thesis, in spite of his clear table of contents. Unknown to the reader until the last two chapters, the book attempts to be both an analytical construction "on the ground" of lineage and village in the New Territories and at the same time an historical reconstruction of those same social phenomena over time. Theory and history then collaborate in the final chapter to deliver a two-pronged attack on anthropological and historical writings on the subject of lineages in a way which could not have been anticipated in the beginning, given the author's "modest" goals. The detective mystery is an unwise format for a scholarly treatise, one which ultimately detracts from the message put forth. Especially given the chaotic state of interpretation with regard to what scholars of different interests believe to be Freedman's theory, confusion at the level of ideas is most unforgivable. Forcing the reader to hack through a jungle of facts just to get to that message is even more unforgivable.
In any case, I believe that the book's essential argument falls into two parts: 1) the author's analytical construction of what he sees to be the actual state of lineage and village organization in the New Territories today and 2) his interpretation of the theoretical import of this kind of "lineage society" seen in the context of the political history of the New Territories from the fourteenth century onward. The aspect of Freedman's thesis which is crucial to Faure's alternative theory of the lineage, especially in Chapters 3-6, concerns his apparent emphasis upon "the coincidence of agnatic and local community" which is constitutive of lineage-village as understood by Freedman et al. Underlying this coincidence agnatic-cum-local community, in his opinion, is the importance Freedman placed upon the maintenance of propertied estate and ancestral worship. Faure argues instead that the making of the
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of different forms of “lineage society". The final chapter assesses his findings in relation to prevailing theories put forth by anthropologists and historians of China.
History-cum-anthropology as it is, the worth of this book can only be seen accurately in terms of whether all this history (or anthropology) makes for good anthropology. Bolstered by the admissions of the author bimself, I see no other way of assessing faithfully the merits of Faure's ambitious thesis. Incidentally, I should mention that, assuming that the reader can manage to digest the mass of names, places, dates that fill the entire book, it is not easy to comprehend at first reading the gist of his overall thesis, in spite of his clear table of contents. Unknown to the reader until the last two chapters, the book attempts to be both an analytical construction "on the ground" of lineage and village in the New Territories and at the same time an historical reconstruction of those same social phenomena over time. Theory and history then collaborate in the final chapter to deliver a two-pronged attack on anthropological and historical writings on the subject of lineages in a way which could not have been anticipated in the beginning, given the author's "modest" goals. The detective mystery is an unwise format for a scholarly treatise, one which ultimately detracts from the message put forth. Especially given the chaotic state of interpretation with regard to what scholars of different interests believe to be Freedman's theory, confusion at the level of ideas is most unforgivable. Forcing the reader to hack through a jungle of facts just to get to that message is even more unforgivable.
In any case. I believe that the book's essential argument falls into two parts: 1) the author's analytical construction of what he sees to be the actual state of lineage and village organization in the New Territories today and 2) his interpretation of the theoretical import of this kind of "lineage society" seen in the context of the political history of the New Territories from the fourteenth century onward. The aspect of Freedman's thesis which is crucial to Faure's alternative theory of the lineage. especially in Chapters 3-6, concerns his apparent emphasis upon "the coincidence of agnatic and local community" which is constitutive of lineage-village as understood by Freedman et al. Underlying this coincidence agnatic-cum-local community, in his opinion, is the importance Freedman placed upon the maintenance of propertied estate and ancestral worship. Faure argues instead that the making of the
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