| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Keith Nathaniel Knapp. Selfless Offspring, Filial Children and Social Order in Medieval China. Honolulu: University of Hawai|jUi Press. 2005. Pp. x, 300. $47.00.

This book studies filial piety in early medieval China (a.d. 100–600). During this period literati turned to Mysterious Learning, Taoism, and Buddhism for intellectual stimulation, and Confucian filial piety tales also achieved popularity. These seemingly contradictory phenomena, according to Keith Nathaniel Knapp, were due to the existence of a weak central government and the emergence of powerful local clans. Patriarchs of the extended families needed Confucian values and rites to ensure their survival in the "politically fragmented world" (p. 188) and the continuity of their privileged positions. Against this historical setting Knapp sets various versions of Accounts of Filial Offspring, investigating the origins of filial piety tales, the identity of their creators and readers, and the ideology conveyed in the stories.

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