Social history in 17th-century China; sounds really interesting.

Disappointingly thin fare -- a very short book padded out with very long excerpts from Pu Songling (which are not even directly relevant to the history of Tancheng, but just there to give the general flavor of the times). There is a lack of coherence, no overarching argument or structure; and the sudden descent into dream-subjectivity when narrating woman Wang's story is just jarringly out of place. However, I can't complain too much since I never would have learned anything about this distant time and place without Prof. Spence digging up the sources and presenting them in English -- thanks to him for recognizing that he had interesting material there; I just wish he could have done more with it.

Given to a guy from Shandong Province, whose hometown is not too far from Tancheng.