Yongtao Du

author of "The Order of Places: Translocal Practices of the Huizhou Merchants in Late Imperial China"

November 4, 2015

Yongtao Du received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 2006. He joined the history department of Oklahoma State in 2009, and is now teaching East Asian history.

There were over a thousand counties and prefectures in late imperial China; each loomed large in the hearts and minds of the local natives, and had a history of its own. "The Order of Places" tells a story of how these places were ordered by the long-lived imperial state, and then re-ordered during the 16^th through 18^th centuries as geographical mobility increased.

At the center of the story are the mobile merchants from south China's Huizhou Prefecture, then the most prominent merchant group in China. The story presents the dynamics of geography in the world's most enduring empire on the eve of its entry into modern history. The author explores the changing relationships between people and the place they called 'home,' between local place and the life-world the Chinese called 'all-under-Heaven,' and between local places.

URL: https://library.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2016-honorees/yongtao-du

Last Updated: 13 March 2023