Author: Michelle T. King

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Publication Date: 2013-12

ISBN: 9780804785983

This book locates a significant historical shift in the representation of female infanticide during the nineteenth century. It was during these years that the practice transformed from a moral and deeply local issue affecting communities into an emblematic cultural marker of a backwards Chinese civilization, requiring the scientific, religious, and political attention of the West. Using a wide array of Chinese, French and English primary sources, the book takes readers on an unusual historical journey, presenting the varied perspectives of those concerned with the fate of an unwanted Chinese daughter. Professor Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley reviewed that, this book “Offers riveting discussions of what infanticide meant to mothers and other women in nineteenth-century China, and to elite men who tried to prevent the practice.”