The Making of a New Rural Order in South China: Volume 2, Mer... - 9781107048515

The Making of a New Rural Order in South China: Volume 2, Merchants, Markets, and Lineages, 15001700Author(s): Joseph P. McDermott\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9781107048515, 978-1107048515\nSynopsis\nThis volume is written for anyone who has wondered about the growth of Chinese businesses and their relation to Chinese family and government institutions. Making full use of its partner volume's findings on village institutions in the southern prefecture of Huizhou, this volume explains how late imperial China's key regional group of merchants emerged from this prefecture's village lineages. It identifies the strategies they deployed to overcome the serious obstacles to their domination of major financial transactions and commodity markets throughout much of China from 1500 to 1700. At the same time it describes how the commercial success enjoyed by these 'house firms' undermined their lineages' .