Inside and Outside the Market Town: Regional Structure and Social Change in Jiangnan in the Late Ming Dynasty

This regional social history, focusing on the towns of Jiangnan in the late Ming Dynasty, unfolds from the perspectives of family rise and fall, economic development, and geographical environment, vividly recreating a multi-dimensional picture of town society in Jiangnan during that period. The book takes the powerful class as an entry point, delves into the towns, and reveals the formation and changes of powerful groups in towns with obvious artificial "town-creation" traces. Among these, the "gentry-fication" of local forces is a crucial node. It also analyzes, from the perspective of the external environment, the impact and changes that the large-scale development of towns as settlement forms brought to the original social order in the Jiangnan region during the late Ming Dynasty. This book examines towns within a broader socio-cultural background, innovatively focusing on the role of local forces in town development, revealing the connotations and characteristics of the historical evolution of Jiangnan society in a specific time and space, and providing a new perspective for understanding the historical status and social significance of Jiangnan towns.