Four Seasons - by John W Dardess (Paperback)

About the Book

Richly researched and engagingly written, this important history of imperial China shows in fascinating detail how Emperor Jiajing and his grand secretaries governed. Drawing on a treasure trove of the grand secretaries' personal writings, John W. Dardess's narrative brings to...

Book Synopsis

Richly researched and engagingly written, this important history of imperial China shows in fascinating detail how Emperor Jiajing and his grand secretaries governed. Drawing on a treasure trove of the grand secretaries' personal writings, John W. Dardess's narrative brings to life the inner workings of the largest polity on the face of the earth.

Review Quotes

In Four Seasons, John Dardess has once again deployed his unsurpassed mastery of the primary sources for the political history of the Ming court to present a panoramic view of the intricate and fluid dynamics of the Jiajing reign, from 1522 to 1567. Focusing his narrative on the succession of four chief grand secretaries, he traces the course of affairs at the imperial court through the turbulent years of the mid-sixteenth century, from the Great Rites controversy of the 1520s to the aftermath of the fall of Yan Song in the early 1560s. Dardess has mined the correspondence of the emperor and his top counsellors and official records of the court, as well as private writings of the key figures who shaped this era. He has produced an intimate account of the interplay of imperial power in the person of the emperor Zhu Houcong and the individual ambitions and policy agendas of the four most powerful leaders of the civil bureaucracy across the four decades of Jiajing's reign. This book will provide specialists in the Ming with access to a most welcome level of fine detail for a crucial period in China's early modern transformation, and it can also serve as a readable and engaging text for undergraduate courses in Chinese history.

Four Seasons is a welcome addition to the field of Ming political history. It will engage students and stimulate scholars. The field would benefit from further studies examining Ming emperors, their Grand Secretaries, and the seasons of government through which they passed.

Four Seasons provides a vivid account of the tempestuous confrontations between the Jiajing emperor and his officials--confrontations that altered the political landscape of the Ming Dynasty. Dardess draws on a rich array of private writings and official documents, tracing the arc of the emperor's reign from his hurried and unexpected enthronement as a boy through his political battles over rituals, religion, and war and into cranky old age and Daoist reclusion. Dardess writes with his usual flair, offering a gripping, thoughtful, and informative narrative that's a pleasure to read.

John W. Dardess offers a detailed and lively narrative of the life of Jiajing and the dramatic period as a whole. . . . Returning to the model of in-depth studies of individuals, Four Seasons represents a long-overdue consideration of the personalities of this pivotal period.

Professor Dardess's book Four Seasons is a remarkable study of Jiajing's court politics and governance.... In sum, this book is a rich, informative, and thoughtful narrative of Jiajing's court politics and governance refracted through four senior bureaucratic careers. Readers will come away with great appreciation of the role of personality, of the influence of chance, of the relations between the Emperor and his top officials, and of the complexity and ironies at Jiajing's court. The book is a significant contribution to the political history of Ming China.

The Jiajing era comes to life in this record of powerful personalities, mammoth rituals, and court intrigue. Four Seasons is a signal contribution to Ming institutional history.

About the Author

John W. Dardess (1937-2020) was professor emeritus of history at the University of Kansas. His books include Ming China, 1368-1644: A Concise History of a Resilient Empire, Governing China, 150-1850, and A Political Life in Ming China: A Grand Secretary and His Times.