Letter from the New Editors

Letter from the New Editors To our longtime readers and subscribers this new issue indicates that Ch'ing shih wen-t'i has undergone a cycle of rebirth. Rechristened in English Late Imperial China, the journal nonetheless retains a karmic tie with its earlier self. As incoming editors, we are particularly mindful of our predecessors, Jonathan Spence and Ramon Myers, who set CSWT on its original course and created its loyal following. More immediately we wish to thank the outgoing editors, James Cole, Susan Naquin and Mary Rankin, for maintaining high standards for us to match and for contributing their ideas and support to the expansion plans initiated here. We hope that Late Imperial China wiU be a worthy successor to CSWT. The new name indicates our desire to reach out to a wider audience , including non-Qing specialists, and to suggest a more organic periodization than a dynastic framework easily allows. We hope the content of this and future issues will stimulate the field to see aspects of Qing society and culture in a longer historical trajectory. We also encourage contributions of historically oriented scholarship in humanities and the arts, and of work from a comparative perspective. Our new format provides approximately 25 percent more space per issue, allowing us to expand formal research offerings without giving up the bibliographical review articles and research notes which long time readers of CSWT have come to rely upon. Joshua Fogel will continue his annual update of Japanese scholarship. On the China side, Mi Chu Wiens has kindly volunteered to supervise translations of relevant sections of the Zhongguo lishi nianjian. Space considerations may limit our ability to print everything of value. As a service to subscribers we plan to list additional titles which will be made available on request at cost. Finally, our decision to implement longstanding suggestions that this be a refereed journal will help ensure the high quality of contributions, while also better rewarding authors. ...