New Publication: Liang Cai, Convict Politics: From Utopia to Serfdom in Early China (221 BCE–23 CE).

Cai, Liang. Convict Politics: From Utopia to Serfdom in Early China (221 BCE–23 CE). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026.

Purchase Link: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/convict-politics/05F7B83D22885B9C0074A4C9E166C3AA#fndtn-information

About the Author

Liang Cai , University of Notre Dame, Indiana

Liang Cai is Associate Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame.

Book description

In this innovative history, Liang Cai examines newly excavated manuscripts alongside traditional sources to explore convict politics in the early Chinese empires, proposing a new framework for understanding Confucian discussions of law and legal practice. While a substantial number of convict laborers helped operate the local bureaucratic apparatus in early China, the central court re-employed numerous previously convicted men as high officials. She argues that convict politics emerged, because, while the system often criminalized individuals, including the innocent, it was simultaneously juxtaposed with redemption policies and frequent amnesties in pursuit of a crime-free utopia. This dual system paralyzed the justice system, provoking intense Confucian criticism and resulting in a deep-seated skepticism toward law in the Chinese tradition, with a long-lasting political legacy.

Reviews

‘Professor Cai solidifies her position as a leading scholar of ancient legal and political history. Her meticulous research, based on historical texts and excavated documents, brilliantly exposes the cruelty and paradoxes of the ‘open prison’ that was the Han Empire. The legacy of such systems continues to shape contemporary China.’

Anthony J. Barbieri-Low - co-author of Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China

‘Cai arrestingly recasts our image of the Qin and Han Dynasties. These regimes’ laws were not meant to be cruel, but to bring about a crime-free utopia. Nevertheless, these performance-based dictates made criminals of both commoner and official alike. A supposed utopia became a dystopia in which convicts ruled convicts.’

Keith Knapp - co-editor of The Cambridge History of China: Volume 2, The Six Dynasties, 220–589

‘A fascinating and horrifying study of the inner workings of the Qin and Han penal system, which criminalized vast swathes of the population to exploit them as forced labor. Liang Cai offers an outstanding analysis of the cruel injustices perpetrated in creating a realm of offenders.’

Olivia Milburn - University of Hong Kong

‘In her thought-provoking monograph, Cai Liang explores how the quest for legal-administrative perfectionism in early Chinese empire created a paradox: notoriously harsh laws, which created an army of convicts, were undermined by excessive laxity of repeated amnesties. Scholars of China’s imperial history and comparatists will benefit immensely from Cai’s insights.’

Yuri Pines - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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