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Confucianism and Autocracy: Professional Elites and the Founding of the Ming Dynasty . By John W. Dardess. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. x, 358 pp. Map, Notes, Glossary, Bibliography, Index. $35 (cloth); $12 (paper).

Confucianism and Autocracy is an intricately structured and stimulating exploration of the relationship between Confucianism and politics during the Yuan-Ming transition. John Dardess conducts this exploration in five thematic chapters. Chapter 1, which is based on an impressive "128 collected works" (p. 4), imaginatively applies Western theories about the professions to fourteenth-century Confucianism. Chapter 2 discusses Confucianism during the Yuan-Ming transition and the attitudes of Confucians towards the late Yuan crisis. Chapter 3 analyzes the ideas on "world salvation" of four fourteenth-century scholars from Che-tung and further suggests that in these thinkers can be found the theoretical foundations for the despotism of Ming T'ai-tsu. Chapter 4 describes the challenging process whereby T'ai-tsu, "former peasant and outlaw" (p. 183), adjusted Confucian theory to the political exigencies of his new dynasty. This lengthy chapter throws much light on the perennial problem of how, after seizure of control by force, legitimate routinized rule can be established. Chapter 5 deals with the Confucian response to T'ai-tsu, and in particular with the attempts of Fang Hsiao-ju to "reformulate doctrine" (p. 256) and check the penal terror of T'ai-tsu's regime.