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Reviews 157 have multiple views on similar issues to discern where the similarities and differences among experts lie. It is also true that the relentiess march of events can begin to date such a volume rather quickly. To name just a few: the Asian currency crisis, the Fifteenth Party Congress, the First Session of the Ninth National People's Congress, and new revelations bearing on American technology exports to China have all occurred since the book's publication. For a one-volume introduction to the processes and dynamics of China's reforms as of September 1996, though, it would be hard to beat China's Economic Future. Clyde D. Stoltenberg University of Kansas Clyde Stoltenberg is aprofessor ofbusiness law and international business who specializes in trade and investment issues in East and SoutheastAsia. Paul R. Katz. Demon Hordes and Burning Boats: The Cult ofMarshal Wen in Late Imperial Chekiang. Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1995. xviii, 261 pp. Paperback $19.95, isbn 0-7914-2662-9. Paul Katz' case study of a local religious cult in Zhejiang contributes to a growing body ofliterature that explores the role ofpopular religion in bringing about social change in late imperial China. Scholars have long been concerned with the anthropological aspects of religious practices in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and, in the research on Chinese religion, a large corpus ofmedieval Daoist and Buddhist texts and rituals have been analyzed. But only recentlyhave studies like those of Valerie Hansen and Kenneth Dean begun to pay more attention to regional analysis and historical change in the development oflocal cults.1 Demon Hordes and BurningBoats is a welcome addition to the interdisciplinary dialogue between history, anthropology, and religious studies in the research on late traditional Chinese culture. Katz' study is confined to the cult ofMarshal Wen, a cult that is perhaps less well known than other national cults such as the ones devoted to Mazu or Tianhou (the Empress ofHeaven) and Guandi (the God ofWar). The significance of© 1999 by University ^ Marshal^y6n cuit stems iess from ¿ts popularityacross China than from its symbolism in the control of disease and epidemics in the local cultures of the Lower Yangzi and Southeast coastal regions. Marshal Wen has been known as a plague-fighting deity since the Song period, and he appears in a variety ofsources: 158 China Review International: Vol. 6, No. ?, Spring 1999 Daoist canonical texts; literati prose, poetry, and temple stele inscriptions; accounts oflocal customs in county and sub-county gazetteers; and, from the Ming period on, popular novels and folktales. Katz is able to draw from many ofthese sources and does not give primacy to any one particular type of source. Unlike other studies oflocal religion that focus on the role of the state or Daoist liturgies or merchant contributions, Katz does not privilege any one dominant theme in the history of the veneration ofMarshal Wen. The result is a more balanced account ofthe origins and representations ofhis cult. After a brief discussion ofthe development ofcommerce, urbanization, and the spread ofprinting during the Song—an area ofresearch already well known to historians—Katz presents an interesting typology ofplague spirits. He distinguishes between plague deities belonging to the heavenly bureaucracy and plague demons who represented the souls ofpeople who have died in epidemics. To appease the former, the intervention ofreligious specialists was required, especially Daoist priests, who performed prophylactic rituals for the prevention of future outbreaks ofcontagious diseases. To control the latter, exorcistic or apotropaic rituals were performed by both religious specialists and members of the community. According to Katz, Marshal Wen may have originated as a plague demon but ended up being worshipped as a deity who could control both other plague deities and plague demons. Katz' approach is useful for an understanding ofthe function oflocal cults in the control ofdisease and epidemics. His research draws upon religious Daoist texts dating back to the Han dynasty that deal with preventing epidemics, as well as more recent expulsion rites in the Buddhist tradition. This book may be the first systematic attempt in English to address the relationship between religion, disease, and epidemics in medieval China. Katz attempts to elucidate the diverse meanings and images of...

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