The seventeenth century was a time of great social and political upheaval in China. In Crisis and Transformation in Seventeenth-Century China, Chun-shu Chang and Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang offer a detailed and engaging analysis of society, culture, and the state in China during this critical period.

The main thread of the book follows the life and works of a remarkable figure of the period, Li Yü (1611-80), whose vast array of accomplishments and experiences mirror seventeenth-century China in all its complexity and excitement. Li Yü's China was a world of unprecedented changes in almost all spheres of life. A thriving commercial and industrial economy, stupendous population growth, and the emergence of a new age of science and technology were accompanied by intense urbanization, radical views on money, wealth, and luxury, liberal attitudes toward sexuality, and developments that would change the nature of the literary and intellectual world. The Changs' exhaustive exploration of Chinese historical and literary sources of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is combined with a selective application of interpretive insights and analytic techniques from the major theoretical schools.

An important resource for scholars in history, literature, and Asian studies, Crisis and Transformation extends its appeal to those interested in the history of science, issues of gender and social transformation, and popular culture movements.

Chun-shu Chang is Professor of History, University of Michigan, and Honorary Professor of Chinese History, China. Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang is Visiting Associate Professor of History and Research Associate, Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.

張春樹，生於山東梨園張莊。幼讀舊式私塾長大，後入颱灣大學曆史係、考古人類學係，畢業後人“中央研究院”史語所工作。20世紀50年代去美國哈佛大學深造，學位完成後執教於密西根大學曆史係至今。其問曾在香港中文大學任教並任曆史係主任。治學專長於政治史、軍事史、社會經濟史、文學與思想史、邊疆史、民族史、法律史、考古與人類學、科技史。主要學術專著有Nation，State，and Imperialism in Early China，ca．160017．C—A．D．8(2007）；Frontier，Immigration．and Empire in Han China．130B．C—A．D．157(2007、t Rede—fining History(與駱雪倫閤著，1998）；South China in theTwelfth Century(1981）；War and Peace with the Hsiungnu in Early Han China(1980）;The Han Colonis and Their Settlements on the Chu—yen Frontier(1966）,《漢代邊疆史論集》(1975）；《國電、國學與國傢——淺釋民初清華國學研究院四位史傢之思想與史學》(2006）等十餘部。