Much scholarly work has been published on the Chinese medieval
'aristocracy', in Chinese, Japanese and Western languages. It is
commonly accepted that the change from an aristocratic society to a
'meritocracy' was one of the turning points of Chinese history. But
since almost every aspect of political, economic and cultural history is
involved in questions of the nature of the aristocracy, perhaps the only
way to test theories of the means by which a small elite preserved its
social status and political prestige for seven or eight hundred years is
by tracing the fortunes of a single family in great detail. The present
work is a fully documented case study of the Ts'uis of Po-ling from the
first through the ninth centuries. By observing OW evolution of the
Ts'uis as an aristocratic kinship group - and an unusual quantity of
rich and original source material was available to Dr Ebrey - the author
demonstrates OW fluctuation in aristocratic influence and tic changing
basis of such families' prestige and power. Studies such as this are
essential to enlarge our knowledge not only of medieval society and
politics in China but also the development of family and lineage. In the
light of the detailed evidence Dr Ebrey provides, many conventional
views many well have to be abandoned.