Imagining the South / by Julia Chi-yung Liang

Historically known as Lingnan, South China, situated on the southern edge of China, was once regarded as a malarial, pestilential land of "shamanism over medicine," and a place of backward culture. By the late Qing dynasty, it was ravaged by epidemics such as leprosy, smallpox, plague, and beriberi. Yet, this same South China, in the era of globalization since the 19th century, became a stage for the collision and convergence of diverse medical systems. New knowledge, technologies, practices, institutions, and epidemics developed here in tandem, as traditions from the Central Plains, the West, Southeast Asia, and the indigenous cultures interacted and contended, forging a rich and inclusive hybrid medical culture. The stories recounted in this book unfold within these two overlapping "southern" spaces. Renowned historian Julia Chi-yung Liang turns her gaze to diseases, medical technologies, religious beliefs, and figures previously overlooked—scholars, merchants, doctors, remnants of former dynasties, foreign missionaries, monks, and Taoist priests. Through the lens of social medical history, she reveals the everyday lives once obscured by grand narratives and heroic perspectives, illuminating the vibrant, eclectic, and creative "Early Modern South China" that existed before rigid concepts took hold, a space shaped by the environment, the body, disease, and globalization during the transition from tradition to modernity. Full Title: Imagining the South: Early Modern South China Co-constructed by Environment, Body, Disease, and Globalization Author: Julia Chi-yung Liang ISBN: 978-988-237-384-6 Binding: Hardcover Language: Traditional Chinese Pages: 248 Dimensions: 229 x 152 mm **About the Author** **Julia Chi-yung Liang** Dr. Liang holds a Ph.D. in History from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, France. She is a Professor Emerita at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, the University of Hong Kong, and an Academician of the Academia Sinica, Taiwan (2010). She was awarded the Knight of the Order of Academic Palms by the French government (2015). Her primary research interests include Chinese philanthropy, medicine and disease, and food and health in the Ming and Qing dynasties and beyond. Her extensive works in Chinese, English, and French include *Leprosy: A Social History of a Disease*, *Facing Illness: Medical Concepts and Organizations in Traditional Chinese Society*, *Charity and Education: Philanthropic Organizations in the Ming and Qing Dynasties*, and *Seeking Stability in Change: Enlightenment Education and Philanthropy in the Ming, Qing, and Early Modern Periods*.