Criminal Justice in China: A History
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15
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In a groundbreaking work, Klaus Muhlhahn offers a comprehensive examination of the criminal justice system in modern China, an institution deeply rooted in politics, society, and culture. Based on unprecedented research in Chinese archives and incorporating prisoner testimonies, witness reports, and interviews, this book is essential reading for understanding modern China.
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A survey history of criminal justice from the late imperial period through the cultural revolution. With so much to cover, it is difficult for him to cover any single issue with much depth and it must have been extraordinarily challenging to decide what to focus on.
I was a bit surprised to see so much discussion on prisons and punishment, and relatively little on criminal law and legal proceedings even though these were often subordinated to the political exigencies of the GMD and CCP, I was really hoping to read more on in the work. The introduction suggests that the book will fill in a gap through providing the survey but I found that much of the discussion on prisons, policing, and punishment have been covered in other survey works by Dikötter and Dutton, among others.
