Primary source-driven Research on the Social History of Institutions in Early Modern China

我的项目探索官员的资历及其家庭背景，以期澄清官员工作及其任命和晋升的社会环境。该项目主要借鉴了一个以前未被开发的历史来源--《铜官录》，它记录了在同一省份或同一政府机构任职的官员的前几个职位和家庭成员组成的信息。除了揭示该登记册是如何编制的之外，该项目还展示了政府上级如何使用该登记册来管理其下属。而下级则用它来加强彼此之间的联系，希望它能稳定特定官僚之间的人事关系。该项目通过数字证据证明，晚清时期人们利用买学位制度来提高自己的社会地位。

My project explores the qualifications of officials and their family backgrounds with an eye to clarifying the social environment in which officials operated and in which their appointments and promotions were made.It draws primarily from a previously untapped historical source, the Tongguanlu [Register of Officials], which records information on the previous posts and the composition of family members of officials serving in the same province or same governmental agency.In addition to shedding light on the how the Register was compiled, the project also shows how government superiors used the Register to manage their subordinates, while subordinates used it to heighten a sense of connection among themselves.The Register was compiled in the hope that it would stabilize personnel relations within particular government offices.The project demonstrates through numerical evidence that people during the late Qing period,used the system of purchased degrees to advance their social status.