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DESCRIPTION:Join Dr. Porter for the launch of his book\, Slaves of the Empe
 ror: Service\, Privilege\, and Status in the Qing Eight Banners (Columbia 
 University Press). Prof. Porter will be joined in conversation by several 
 guests from McGill's History and Classical Studies and East Asian Studies 
 departments. Books will be available for purchase at the event.\n\nLaunch 
 in ARTS W-120\, followed by reception in Arts Lobby\n\nAbout the book:\n\n
 China’s last imperial dynasty governed a vast and culturally diverse terri
 tory\, encompassing a wide range of local political systems and regional e
 lites. But the Qing empire was built and held together by a single imperia
 l elite: the more than two million members of the hereditary Eight Banner 
 system who were at the core of both the military and the bureaucracy. The 
 banner population was multiethnic\, linked by shared membership in a clear
 ly demarcated status group defined in law and administrative practice. Ban
 ner people were bound to the court by an exchange of loyal service for ins
 titutionalized privilege\, a relationship symbolically conceptualized as o
 ne of slave to master.\n\nSlaves of the Emperor explores the Qing approach
  to one of the fundamental challenges of early modern state-building: how 
 to develop an effective bureaucracy with increasing administrative capacit
 y to govern a growing polity while retaining the loyalty of the ruling fam
 ily’s most important supporters. David C. Porter traces how the banner sys
 tem created a service elite through its processes of incorporating new mem
 bers\, its employment of bannermen as technical specialists\, its impositi
 on of service obligations on women as well as men\, and its response to fi
 scal and ideological challenges. Placing Qing practices in comparative per
 spective\, he uncovers crucial parallels to similar institutions in Tokuga
 wa Japan\, imperial Russia\, and the Ottoman Empire. Slaves of the Emperor
  provides a new framework for understanding the structure and function of 
 elites both in China and across Eurasia in the early modern period.\n\nLin
 k to book here  \n
DTSTART:20240325T213000Z
DTEND:20240325T230000Z
LOCATION:W-120 (Reception follows in Arts Lobby)\, Arts Building\, CA\, QC\
 , Montreal\, H3A 0G5\, 853 rue Sherbrooke Ouest
SUMMARY:Book Launch: David Porter's 'Slaves of the Emperor' 
URL:https://www.mcgill.ca/history/channels/event/book-launch-david-porters-
 slaves-emperor-355392
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