強固な中央集権的文臣官僚支配を貫いた社会に、地域・地方という問題があったのか。日中米の研究者に、中国史以外の研究者も交えて、多角的に論究

Statesmen and Gentlemen is an important study of the way in which, during the twelfth- and thirteenth-centuries, China's ruling meritocracy was transformed into a locally rooted elite whose principal aim was the consolidation of their power, wealth and influence on a local as opposed to a national and dynastic basis. Professor Hymes offers a remarkable picture of the institutional and social changes this process entailed, but he also examines in detail the subtle ways in which the elite's perception of itself and its social role changed and it came to offer powerful support to local self-defence, social welfare, religious cults and temple-building.