While there was a long tradition of epigraphy in China, systematic research on inscriptions from the Mongol-Yuan Dynasty began in the late twentieth century when Japanese scholars such as Ikeuchi Isao 池内功, Matsuda Koichi 松田孝一, Morita Kenji 森田憲司, and Muraoka Hitoshi 村岡倫 began to examine the topic. Tomoyasu Iiyama 飯山知保 has been involved in the investigation of steles in North China since 2001. This book is the result of Iiyama's two decades of fieldwork and active research. To some extent, the theme of this book might be of epigraphy, as it discusses the epigraphic genre of stele, from its emergence and development to its decline. Furthermore, this book displays Iiyama's excellent writing skills not only by combining human stories with the life of steles based on solid sources, but also by mingling various approaches from Japanese, Chinese, and English academia in a perfect balance.

This book consists of a prologue, acknowledgments, an introduction, five chapters, a conclusion, seven appendices, references, and an index.

In the Introduction, a review of two core issues, the “Principles of Mongol Imperial Governance” and “‘Mongol rules’ in Chinese history,” raises the major question to be solved in this book: How did the nascent northern Chinese elites interpret and internalize Mongol rule? As Iiyama's previous book (original Japanese version Reference Iiyama2011; Chinese translation 2021) has shown, the civil service examinations 科舉 under the Jin and Yuan Dynasties were socially far less important than those in South China. After the fall of the Jin, there were no examinations for at least three generations. With the decline of the examinations as a reliable route to officialdom under the Mongols, a large number of new elites rose. Expanding the concept of “literati elites” to include a broader category of “elites” is particularly revealing of this period in North China. This book describes the creation of these new modes of elite formation, status-seeking, and status-maintenance in North China under Mongol rule. It is one story unfortunately omitted by the otherwise great Jiangnan-centered Song-Yuan-Ming Transition,Footnote ¹ or, in Iiyama's words, it is “a forgotten northern trajectory of Chinese social history under Mongol rule” (p. 12). It also sheds new light on the impact of Mongol expansion on Eurasian history.

The genre of genealogical steles from the Jin and Yuan, generally categorized as “steles of the ancestral graves” (xianying bei 先塋碑), creates a thread running through the long-term society of North China under the Jin, Yuan, and Ming dynasties. The genealogical stele was first defined by Iiyama in Reference Iiyama2013. In his 2013 Japanese paper, which spans more than 100 pages, he published the steles of the Sun family of Hunyuan, northern Shanxi, which he discovered during fieldwork. From 2015 to 2017, further discussions on the genealogical steles was published in both Chinese and English, mainly based on the Sun family and the Duan family of Jishan, southern Shanxi.Footnote ² These form the basis of the first two chapters. The title of one article “Steles and Status” evolved to become “Genealogy and Status” in the book. While Iiyama's publications on the Duan family can be traced back as early as 2009, his English rewritings in this book have enhanced the readability and moved beyond discussions of their textual value to bring to light the functionality of steles. This once again demonstrates the diversity of Iiyama's academic accomplishments. The book also delves into the spatiality, monumentality, and topology of steles, as well as the layout of graveyards. Though it does not utilize the terminologies of archaeology and art history extensively, it is accompanied by accessible genealogical charts, family trees, and color photos, often providing readers with a vivid sense of being on the scene.

As the main body of the book, five chapters tell the stories of five families. The stories themselves are remarkable, compelling, and worthy of a wider readership. This book cleverly integrates important arguments into the storylines. Taking the Sun family as an example, Chapter 1 introduces the importance of the Mongol political principle, that is, the hereditary master–servant bond called genjiao, 根脚 literally “root and foot,” which signified one's transgenerational political and social affiliation with Činggis Qan and his descendants. As the genjiao was the main determinant of priority in office holdings, the nascent elites ensured their hereditary status by sponsoring genealogical steles. In Chapter 2, Iiyama demonstrates the emergence and development of genealogical steles, which were used at first by common people and low-level officials in the Jin Dynasty. Genealogical steles only later became popular among the nascent elites under Mongol rule. From the late thirteenth century on, non-Han families also sponsored genealogical steles, and the Yuan government began to institutionalize them. Chapter 3 shows how the Liu family of Beihai County, Shandong Province, facing increasingly deteriorating prospects for military promotion after the late thirteenth century, petitioned Cai Wenyuan 蔡文淵, an official-scholar, to write a genealogical stele. By doing so, the family joined a network of influential officials who would help each other secure office and promotion. The discussion on the Song family of Huazhou, northern Henan, in Chapter 4 is quite different from Iiyama's earlier paper on the same family and the Yuan-Ming transition.Footnote ³ Here, relationships within the family and between families constitute a major topic. In Chapter 5, the case of the Yang family of Daizhou in northern Shanxi is employed to describe the decline of the genealogical stele as a genre after the demise of the Mongols. Iiyama's thoughts on Ming, Qing, and modern reinterpretations of Yuan-era genealogical steles, the memory of the Mongol rule, and the construction of ethnic identity are of great interest. Footnote ⁴

Being a province with numerous steles from the Jin-Yuan era, Shanxi is a focal point of investigation for Iiyama and his colleagues. Jinping WangFootnote ⁵ likewise focuses on North China under Mongol rule and adopts the frame of five case-study chapters. The difference is that Wang paid more attention to religions and grassroots communities, while Iiyama discusses elites and office-holding. While Wang's cases are all from Shanxi, Iiyama's book covers the complete geographical scope of North China (Appendix 1, p. 155). The five main families are from Shanxi, Henan, and Shandong, with ancillary discussion of families from Hebei and Shaanxi. The use of more than 300 steles (Appendix 2 and 3, pp. 156–235) provides solid and powerful support for the arguments. The appendices constitute a valuable database for professional readers. Since many steles stand in remote villages and fields, one can imagine the ups and downs of Iiyama's twenty years of hard work. Iiyama has led scholarship in the field, from first defining genealogical steles to producing this definitive book and database, covering the Jin, Yuan, and Ming dynasties.

Genealogy and Status integrates diverse approaches from various research fields. The study of northern elites clearly parallels that made for South China by Robert Hymes and Joseph McDermott (pp. 94, 293). Chapter 4 provides insights into family history issues such as intra-family relationships, marriage, and property distribution, which have a lot in common with Myron Cohen's discussion on the modern northern Chinese lineages. The state and family issue has been one of the major topics of historical anthropology or the “South China School” 華南學派. Iiyama successfully introduced methods of the “South China School” into North China. Readers can easily notice the influence of Michael Szonyi (pp. 108, 122). At the same time, Iiyama's contributions were cited in He Xi's 2020 book on the lineage and community in South China.Footnote ⁶

The combination of political history and social history is one of the most prominent features of this book. It displays Iiyama's familiarity with the history of the Mongol Empire and the Yuan Dynasty. It is undoubtedly thought-provoking and effective for the whole book to look at the social structure of North China in the light of genjiao, the Mongol governance principle. This concept has received much attention from Chinese scholars such as Hsiao Ch'i-Ch'ing, whose works are cited in this book. Nonetheless, Iiyama's bibliography could have benefited from adding three of Zhang Fan's 張帆 important essays, among which one has been translated into English.Footnote ⁷ Concerning the divergence between northern and southern societies during the tenth–fifteenth centuries, and especially the influence of the Mongol rule, a series of contributions by Li Zhi'an 李治安 could have been used.Footnote ⁸

The reconstruction of Mongolian names has long troubled scholars; however, the transcriptions in this book are quite accurate. Only some minor improvements could be proposed: Toq-Temür > Tuq-Temür (pp. 69, 93); Hindü > Hindu (p. 240); Manǰ 蠻子 > Manzi (p. 262); Nangγiǰin 囊加真 > Nangγiyaǰin (p. 264).

The details in this book are rich and its demonstrations are rigorous. I can provide the smallest of corrections. The Onggut scholar-official Ma Zuchang's 馬祖常 death year 1388 (p. 87) should be corrected to 1338. The same page mentions that Ma Zuchang impeached Tümender (Tumentuo'er 土門脫兒, dates unknown), the incumbent assistant director of the right (youchengxiang 右丞相). But according to the original source that this book refers to, this personal name should be Temüder (Temudie'er 帖木迭兒), who can be identified with the famous mid-Yuan “treacherous minister” (?–1320; alternative Chinese transcription 鐵木迭兒; Yuanshi, chapter 205, pp. 4576–4581). The impeachment incident occurred in the fourth year of the Yanyou era (1317).Footnote ⁹ The translation of youchengxiang should follow David Farquhar's “Senior Chief Counciler,”Footnote ¹⁰ which was the title held by the highest chief executive of the Yuan court.

In sum, this adequately framed, substantial, and convincing work will become a must-read in Chinese social history and the history of Mongol Empire. It will surely inspire many studies in the fields of epigraphy, political and social structures, family history, and North China studies. Issues such as ethnic contact under Mongol rule, the commonalities among different regions in Mongol Eurasia, the North–South division, and the process of integration in China all benefit from the elucidations provided by Iiyama's work.