From the Editor

Since Volume 46 marks my first issue as Editor of the Journal of Song-Yuan Studies, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who played a part in the editing and production process. Every issue of JSYS is a collective enterprise that involves the contributions of a substantial fraction of our field, lending their time and expertise as authors, manuscript readers, and book reviewers. This annual endeavor is the institutional expression of the collegiality that has continued to prevail amongst the international community of middle-period specialists from many disciplines.

Like the long shelf of issues that preceded it, this one includes contributors from multiple generations of scholars who have received their training in North America, Europe, and Asia. Fortuitously, these articles represent a cross-section of disciplinary approaches to the history of middle-period China from the late Tang into the late Southern Song. Volume 46 features studies of commercial growth in tenth-century South China, revisionist court historiography of the Southern Tang, literary material culture in Jiangnan, exceptional local epitaphs from North China, bureaucratic responses to famine in the Southern Song, and cartographic models of empire from the twelfth century. By happy accident, the first three articles comprise a mini-symposium on the history of the Ten Kingdoms, and I plan to publish more thematic clusters in future issues, either as the result of conference panels or independent collaborations.

It is my hope that the Journal will welcome challenging interpretative approaches and new interdisciplinary directions, while maintaining the standards for scholarly excellence that my predecessors as Editor—Beverly Bossler, Hugh Clark, Linda Walton, and Don J. Wyatt—have sustained. I have also begun to commission state-of-the-field essays from leading scholars on neglected topics or emerging methodologies, which will appear in forthcoming issues. Furthermore, I would like to renew the invitation to our readers to submit manuscripts to the Journal, especially with the constriction of publishing opportunities for scholarly research on middle-period China.

This issue would not have seen the light of day without the stable of scholars who have devoted countless hours to painstakingly evaluating manuscript submissions. These anonymous experts, whose identities must remain obscured, deserve my utmost praise for making rigorous but constructive suggestions to our authors, and maintaining the highest standards of intellectual integrity. I am extremely grateful to the members of the Executive Editorial Board who have provided formal and informal guidance along the way. I am also pleased to report that the Board has been replenished with five mid-career scholars, who are joining a group of dedicated established scholars, many of whom have served for two or more decades. I plan to further broaden and internationalize this pool of experts in future years, in an effort to expand the Journal's collaborations with Asian and European scholars.

I am thankful to Brian Vivier, our Book Review Editor, for his continuing service to the Journal, and for engaging seven scholars to write lengthy and substantive reviews of new books for an audience of specialists. The Officers and Board of Directors of the Society for Song, Yuan, and Conquest Dynasty Studies—especially Michael Fuller, Tracy Miller, and Cong Ellen Zhang—provided support that smoothed the editorial transition. Bill Kelson, my Editorial Assistant, provided invaluable assistance during the copy-editing and page-proofing process. David Goodrich of Birdtrack Press patiently and masterfully shepherded English words, Chinese characters, and illustrations on a hard drive into an elegantly-designed real-world publication. I also consider myself fortunate to be assuming the editorship at a time when the Journal rests on a stable financial foundation, thanks to the support of our individual and institutional subscribers, supplemented by revenues from Project Muse and JSTOR.

I owe my deepest debt of gratitude to my predecessor as Editor, Don J. Wyatt. Since 2010, Don worked tirelessly to produce six substantial issues of the Journal of Song-Yuan Studies, many of them surpassing the 400-page mark, which have showcased the finest scholarship in our field. This spring and summer, Don patiently provided editorial advice and moral support as I learned the ropes. I can only hope that my own...