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Book Reviews 99 observation on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Boretz subtly connects religious beliefs and practices with literary traditions and their modern day manifestations. He introduces locations, religious practices, and people with a vivid eloquence that makes the reader feel like he or she is there—one can virtually smell the temple incense at the turn of each page. Overall, Gods, Ghosts, and Gangsters is one of the best anthropological explorations of Chinese or Taiwanese religion that I have read. MARC L. MOSKOWITZ, University of South Carolina Ancestral Memory in Early China K.E. BRASHIER. Harvard Yenching Institute Monograph Series, 72. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center (for the Harvard-Yenching Institute), distributed by Harvard University Press, 2011. xii, 470 pages. ISBN 978-0-674-05607-7. US$39.95, £29.95, €36.00, hardcover. In his monograph on ancestral memory that is soon to be joined by a projected companion volume on “Public Memory in Early China,” Kenneth Brashier analyzes early Chinese relationships between the living and the dead as mediated through cults and ritual prescriptions, uncovering a surprising variety of attitudes toward the deceased in the process. While the chronological focus is on the Han 漢, he also draws on Warring States and early medieval evidence, including Buddhist texts. Anyone wishing to learn more about one of the salient features of Chinese culture will do well to study this book whose frequent use of tables, diagrams, and bullet points usefully complements the clarity of the author’s exposition. Brashier’s most instructive contribution is his multifaceted discussion of how people in ancient China conceived of their relationship with deceased ancestors, and how they reconciled the inevitable fading of memories with the imperative to remember, honor, and nourish the dead. The introduction explores the “Han tree of knowledge” in order to reconstruct the deep structure of early imperial thought. It describes four all-pervasive conceptual metaphors for knowledge: a tree growing from a single root but separating into ever finer branches and twigs; a system of increasingly smaller watercourses springing from a shared source; a net of roads converging on the same destination; or a kin group descended from a common ancestor. According to Brashier, such a way of conceptualizing knowledge was more inclusive than the 100 Journal of Chinese Religions ancient Greek model of adversarial debate. Arising from one single origin, conflicting viewpoints were believed to partake of universal truth, albeit to varying degrees. The genealogical metaphor aptly illustrates the significance of lineage as a cognitive structuring device (p. 34). Yet, doubts remain as to whether this extensive exploration of metaphors is strictly necessary to interrogate the “adversariality” inherent in the somewhat monolithically conceived “Western religions” that supposedly color the “manner in which Western theorists analyze religions” (p. 40). If “Western religions” means varieties of Christianity, it would be more precise to say so. If the reference is to the Abrahamic religions, then the statement calls for qualification as they are not all “Western.” Moreover, it is not easy to discern the implied link between pagan adversariality and monotheistic intolerance. And finally, however knowledge was conceptualized by ancient Chinese thinkers, they were no strangers to bitter ideological disagreements. Brashier himself draws attention to such caveats (p. 45), and to his great credit here, as elsewhere (pp. 74, 227), he cautions against single-minded adherence to explanations that he himself has painstakingly built. By repeatedly highlighting the limitations inherent in investigations of past mentalities and ideas, he injects a healthy dose of skepticism into cultural and intellectual history. His willingness to do so demonstrates his admirable intellectual honesty. The first of the five main parts analyzes the ritual canon as an “Imaginary Yardstick for Ritual Performance.” Brashier presents these normative texts as scripts stipulating the comportment of mourners, their sacrificial schedule, the creation of a sacrificial space, and the system of “structured amnesia” (p. 65). The latter limited the number of ascendants receiving worship at any given time by expunging from the temple the generations that intervened between the most recent and the most distant ancestors. While ritual specialists aimed to codify sacrificial practice, the reality of ancestral worship likely differed from their ideals. As Brashier explains, the...

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