Written by one of the foremost historians of Chinese institutions, this book focuses on China's civil service examination system in its final and most elaborate phase during the Ch'ing dynasty. All aspects of this labyrinthine system are explored: the types of questions, the style and form in which they were to be answered, the problem of cheating, and the psychological and financial burdens of the candidates, the rewards of the successful and the plight of those who failed. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including Chinese novels, short stories, and plays, this thought provoking and entertaining book brings to vivid life the testing structure that supplied China's government bureaucracy for almost fourteen hundred years. "Professor Miyazaki's informative work is concerned with a system. . . that was, in effect, . . . the basic institution of Chinese political life, the real pillar which supported the imperial monarchy, the effective vehicle for the aspirations and ambitions of the ruling class. Imperial China without the examination system for the past thousand years and more would have developed in an entirely different way and might not have endured as the continuing form of government over a huge empire."--Pacific Affairs "The most comprehensive narrative treatment in any language of [this] enduring achievement of Chinese civilization."--American Historical Review

During China's late imperial period (roughly 1400-1900 CE), men would gather by the millions every two or three years outside official examination compounds sprinkled across China. Only one percent of candidates would complete the academic regimen that would earn them a post in the administrative bureaucracy. Civil Examinations assesses the role of education, examination, and China's civil service in fostering the world's first professional class based on demonstrated knowledge and skill. While millions of men dreamed of the worldly advancement an imperial education promised, many more wondered what went on inside the prestigious walled-off examination compounds. As Benjamin A. Elman reveals, what occurred was the weaving of a complex social web. Civil examinations had been instituted in China as early as the seventh century CE, but in the Ming and Qing eras they were the nexus linking the intellectual, political, and economic life of imperial China. Local elites and members of the court sought to influence how the government regulated the classical curriculum and selected civil officials. As a guarantor of educational merit, civil examinations served to tie the dynasty to the privileged gentry and literati classes--both ideologically and institutionally. China did away with its classical examination system in 1905. But this carefully balanced and constantly contested piece of social engineering, worked out over the course of centuries, was an early harbinger of the meritocratic regime of college boards and other entrance exams that undergirds higher education in much of the world today.

The Chinese imperial examination system is unique in traditional Chinese society with origins dating back 1,300 years, and has had a far-reaching impact not only on contemporary Chinese society, but also on government systems of other countries around the world. The system was originally created as a political institution to recruit officials to serve the Chinese imperial government. During the period of its use, from 605 through 1905, the imperial examination system played a central role in the Chinese imperial government. It served as a tool for the political and ideological control, functioned as a proxy for education, produced the elite social class, and became a dominant culture in the traditional Chinese society. During its 1,300 years, the system generated countless publications, including the imperial government publications and a variety of non-government works. After the abolition of the system in 1905, numerous publications produced by the international research community spawned the Chinese imperial examination studies. The interdisciplinary study involved a whole range of disciplines, including history, political science, sociology, education, psychology, culture, literature, linguistics, anthropology, philosophy, religion, mathematics, economics, and archive studies. It would be impossible for one to understand China without knowing the imperial examination system and the vast collection of the imperial examination studies. This book provides an annotated bibliography for 214 publications that are relevant to the imperial examination studies, and each entry includes a review to serve as a guide to readers for this collection. Of the 214 publications, 155 are written in Chinese, and 59 are English publications. Although the 214 publications only comprise a fraction of the imperial examination studies, with a variety of subjects and research quality, this bibliography represents in considerable depth the scope of the development of the imperial examination studies. Through selecting, presenting, and reviewing a variety of significant publications, this book provides quick access to the essential literature of the imperial examination studies. College students, faculty, or any other readers who are interested in learning, teaching, or researching the Chinese imperial examination system, Chinese history, the Chinese government systems, culture, ideology, education, literature, and current social issues will find The Chinese Imperial Examination System: An Annotated Bibliography to be an important addition to their research.

In this multidimensional analysis, Benjamin A. Elman uses over a thousand newly available examination records from the Yuan, Ming, and Ch'ing dynasties, 1315-1904, to explore the social, political, and cultural dimensions of the civil examination system, one of the most important institutions in Chinese history. For over five hundred years, the most important positions within the dynastic government were usually filled through these difficult examinations, and every other year some one to two million people from all levels of society attempted them. Covering the late imperial system from its inception to its demise, Elman revises our previous understanding of how the system actually worked, including its political and cultural machinery, the unforeseen consequences when it was unceremoniously scrapped by modernist reformers, and its long-term historical legacy. He argues that the Ming-Ch'ing civil examinations from 1370 to 1904 represented a substantial break with T'ang-Sung dynasty literary examinations from 650 to 1250. Late imperial examinations also made "Tao Learning," Neo-Confucian learning, the dynastic orthodoxy in official life and in literati culture. The intersections between elite social life, popular culture, and religion that are also considered reveal the full scope of the examination process throughout the late empire.

The Class of 1761 reveals the workings of China's imperial examination system from the unique perspective of a single graduating class. The author follows the students' struggles in negotiating the examination system along with bureaucratic intrigue and intellectual conflict, as well as their careers across the Empire—to the battlefields of imperial expansion in Annam and Tibet, the archives where the glories of the empire were compiled, and back to the chambers where they in turn became examiners for the next generation of aspirants. The book explores the rigors and flexibilities of the examination system as it disciplined men for political life and shows how the system legitimated both the Manchu throne and the majority non-Manchu elite. In the system's intricately articulated networks, we discern the stability of the Qing empire and the fault lines that would grow to destabilize it.