This pioneering book provides a comprehensive survey of ancient Chinese women’s history, covering thousands of years from the Neolithic era to China’s unification in 221 BCE. For each period—Neolithic, Shang, Western Zhou, and Eastern Zhou—Bret Hinsch explores central aspects of female life: marriage, family life, politics, ritual, and religious roles. Deeply researched, the book draws on a wide range of Chinese scholarship and primary sources, including transmitted texts, inscriptions, and archaeological evidence. The result is a comprehensive view of women’s history from the beginnings of Chinese civilization up to the beginnings of the imperial era. Clear and readable, the book will be
invaluable for both students and specialists in gender studies.

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Bret Hinsch has made a number of contributions to the history of gender and sexuality in China, primarily for the ancient and pre-modern eras. His latest book, Women in Ancient China, details the process of growing sexual inequality as it unfolded. This book is a useful synthesis of English and Chinese sources on positions and statues of women during the formative epochs of Chinese history.

"Women in Ancient China addresses Chinese women’s history from the Neolithic to the Eastern Zhou periods, tackling such aspects of female experience as marriage conventions, divorce, motherhood, religious belief, funerary rites, and modes of political engagement. Hinsch (history, Fo Guang Univ.) deftly employs both textual and material evidence to reconstruct a “simulacrum of the past” that sidesteps anachronistic tendencies such as the “myth of matriarchy,” which the author considers pervasive in the field, as she writes in the introduction. She seeks to illustrate that despite this misplaced emphasis on an imagined, poorly evidenced matriarchy, women nevertheless were dynamic and important figures in early Chinese society. Hinsch makes a major contribution by broadening the body of knowledge about historical figures with newly relevant detail. Most historians are familiar with the royal consort Fu Hao, whose artifact-laden tomb was unearthed in 1976. Hinsch extends the narrative, highlighting Fu Hao's contemporary Fu Jing, a figure whom oracle inscriptions describe as a powerful state administrator. This book is an excellent resource for those in gender and East Asian studies.



Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers." - CHOICE