This book is the first Western-language monograph on the study of the Qingshui River manuscripts. By examining over 3,000 contracts and other manuscripts, this book offers constructive insights into the long-standing question of how and why a society in late imperial China could maintain a well-functioning social system with few laws but many contracts, i.e., Hobbesian 'words without sword.' Three interrelated questions, what contracts were, how and why they worked, are explained successively. Thus, this book presents a non-stereotypical 'contract society' in southwest China, arguing that the social order which provides predictability and regularity for economic prosperity could be formed and maintained through contracts even under the condition of relatively weak influence of governmental and legal authorities.
This book benefits readers who are interested in law, society, and history. While presenting the socio-legal landscape of a frontier area in late imperial China for historians, this book provides a novel and empirical interpretation of the supposedly well-known contract device for legal researchers, thereby proposing materials for an integrated theoretical explanatory framework of contracts in general. By employing the innovative theory of blockchain in its key argumentation, the book offers a creative interpretation of historical and social phenomena.

Jian Qu has accomplished his doctorate from Heidelberg University, Germany, in 2020. Prior to that, he graduated from Tsinghua University with a Master of Law degree (2015). He also studied at Sciences Po, Paris, and obtained two bachelor's degrees from Southwest University of Political Science and Law (LL.B., 2012) and from Southwest University (B.A., 2012). His studies on legal theory and legal history were supported by the CSC, the Max Weber Foundation, and the DAAD. He was a visiting researcher with a scholarship at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, Frankfurt, in 2018, and the year after, he published his first book, Yanchu fasui ('Taking Promulgated Words as Law,' in two volumes), for which he won the biennial Zeng Xianyi Prize for Outstanding Monographs on Legal History (2019).

Auteur
Jian Qu has accomplished his doctorate from Heidelberg University, Germany, in 2020. Prior to that, he graduated from Tsinghua University with a Master of Law degree (2015). He also studied at Sciences Po, Paris, and obtained two bachelor's degrees from Southwest University of Political Science and Law (LL.B., 2012) and from Southwest University (B.A., 2012). His studies on legal theory and legal history were supported by the CSC, the Max Weber Foundation, and the DAAD. He was a visiting researcher with a scholarship at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, Frankfurt, in 2018, and the year after, he published his first book, Yanchu fasui (Taking Promulgated Words as Law, in two volumes), for which he won the biennial Zeng Xianyi Prize for Outstanding Monographs on Legal History (2019).

Contenu
AbstractDates and CurrencyI. Introduction1.The story of the wealthiest2.Research question: A contract society?2.1.Economic success, social order, and contracts2.2.The general puzzle of how and why the contract worked3.Sources: The Qingshui River region and beyond3.1.A brief introduction to the Qingshui River manuscripts and their studies3.1.1. The discovery3.1.2. Where and when?3.1.3. The content3.1.4. Major collections, publications, and state of the field3.2.Sources in and beyond the Region3.2.1. Taking the Qingshui River manuscripts as the core source3.2.2. Wendou, a cluster of villages, the region, and beyond4.Synopsis and structure of this studyII. Rediscovering Contract in the Qingshui River Region1.Introduction: Standard and borderline contracts1.1.A general and complex term1.2.Standard cases and borderline cases2.Contracts in law and practice2.1.Contracts in contract laws2.1.1. Defining contract in laws: A comparative approach2.1.2. Contracts and the Great Qing Code2.1.3. Contracts without contract law?2.2.Categorization of contracts in everyday life2.2.1. Contractual manuals2.2.2. A necessary hypothesis3.Contents of a contract: Beyond agreementi Table of Contents3.1.The tense of a contract: Future or past?3.2.The performance of contracts3.2.1. Contracts need no performance3.2.2. Producing contracts as the performance3.3.Championing the past in the future3.3.1. Negative obligations in the future tense3.3.2. The established and confirmed3.4.Transcending as an agreement3.4.1. Contract without agreement?3.4.2. Jural relations: An external observation4.Identifying contracts by form: The internal and external4.1.The textual form4.1.1. Essential elements? The changing and unchanged4.1.2. Specialized language and formulaic expressions4.2.The ritual form4.2.1. Customs of contracting4.2.2. Textual reflections4.3.The formulaic beginning of a contract: Indicating and integrating4.3.1. The formula of the beginning4.3.2. Integrating the form and content4.3.3. The indicator as a shortcut5.Paper matters: The materiality of contracts5.1.The burning of contracts5.1.1. The story of Yao the Millionaire5.1.2. A contract of dispute settlement5.2.The non-conceptual contract: The contract and its material carriers5.2.1. The abstract and concrete contract5.2.2. Material carriers other than paper5.3.The validity of the material: Oral and non-original5.3.1. Oral contracts5.3.2. Copies of the contract6.ConclusionIII. Middlemen1.Introduction: Understanding middlemen within a contract2.The primary and the secondary: Formation and restoration 2.1.Four roles2.2.Two levels3.The primary: Introducers, witnesses, and guarantors3.1.Introduction3.1.1. Matchmaking and facilitation3.1.2. Duzhong ii Table of Contents3.1.3. Hanzhong3.2.Witnessing3.3.Guarantee4.The secondary: Arbitrators and peacemakers4.1.The original middleman4.2.Arbitration4.2.1. Fact-finding4.2.2. Reasoning4.3.Mediation5.The middleman as the third party and the third party as the middleman5.1.The involvement of the middleman in a contract5.2.I...