Pepper Mountain: The Life, Death and Posthumous Career of Yang Jisheng - Paperback

by Kenneth J. Hammond (Author)

First published in 2007. The political history of late imperial/early modern China and the relationship between China's traditional political culture and the rapidly changing political environment of China today, are examined through this study of the iconic figure of Yang Jisheng. Born in 1516, Yang had a brief and traumatic career as a junior official in the middle Ming dynasty, before being executed in 1555 for criticising the politics of the imperial state. After his death, Yang was held up as a martyr to Confucian political morality. Over the ensuing 450 years, a variety of constituencies within China have appropriated and deployed Yang's memory in different ways to promote their own political agendas. In recent years, as China has sought to come to grips with the ideological decline of socialism and the need for a new foundation for public morality, there has been a revival of interest in figures like Yang Jisheng. A series of events including the rebuilding of his ancestral shrine, the rededication of a school he founded, and the republication of his writings, show how his legacy is once again being taken up by actors on the contemporary political scene. This is an important study of the power of political myth in China, past and present.

Author Biography

Dr Kenneth J. Hammond became interested in Asia as a young man during the Vietnam War era. After studying Chinese language in Beijing and undertaking further study elsewhere in China and in Boston, he entered Harvard University where he received his Master's degree in East Asian Studies and his PhD in History and East Asian Languages. Currently Associate Professor of History at New Mexico State University, he is a member of the board of directors of the Society for Ming Studies, of which he is a past president. Hammond was a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in and a visiting fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden in 2002-3.