The Power of Moral Perfection examines seventeenth-century Chinese "image politics." It provides students of the history of Confucianism, politics, print culture, and gender in pre-modern China with an innovative analysis of the critical roles played by Confucian ethics as a language of political communication. During the Ming-Qing transition (roughly 1570s-1680s), literati-officials employed public forms such as fictional and non-fictional writing, art, and social spectacles to present positive moral images of themselves and negative images of their rivals. These images delivered and repelled attacks, expressed opinions and emotions, negotiated trust and favor, and rallied support. The rise of print culture, the dynastic change, and the multiplying approaches to Confucian moral cultivation together gave shape to this new political culture. The Power of Moral Perfectio n is the first book-length study of early modern Chinese politics from the perspective of critical men's history. By studying how some dominant images--such as those of the Donglin official, the Fushe scholar, and the turncoat figure--were created, circulated, and contested, it demonstrates that officials' images as sons, husbands, fathers, and friends were creative responses to the evolving political conditions. Such image-making efforts not only relied on the flexibility of Confucian moralism and gender ideology but also greatly enriched them.

This book is also the first in English to examine factionalism across the Ming-Qing dynastic divide. Its interdisciplinary approach treats factionalism as, simultaneously, a political, literary, cultural, and social phenomenon with trans-generational and trans-dynastic dimensions. By integrating micro-historical investigation of everyday life with a macro-historical study of social, cultural, and political changes, the book shows how, in the seventeenth century, image politics reshaped the reality that the personal was political.