About

Benjamin Elman is a Professor Emeritus at UCLA in the Department of History. His research focuses on late imperial and modern Chinese intellectual and cultural history from 1000 to 1930, including the history of education in China from 1600 to 1900 and the history of science in imperial and modern China. His notable publications include 'From Philosophy To Philology: Social and Intellectual Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China,' 'Classical Historiography for Chinese History: Bibliography and Exercises,' and 'A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China.' Elman holds a Ph.D. in Oriental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, earned in 1980, and has contributed significantly to the understanding of Chinese history through his scholarly work.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• World Wide Web
• Computer network

Selected publications

• Preface

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2023

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  DOI

• Changes in Confucian Civil Service Examinations from the Ming to the Ch’ing Dynasty

  2023-11-09

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• PREFACE

  2023-11-09

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  2023-11-09

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• AFTERWORD:

  2023-11-09

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Imperial Gateway

  Cornell University Press eBooks · 2022

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Computer network

  A cknowl e dgm e ntsIt gives me great plea sure to thank the individuals and institutions that made this book pos si ble.My first debt of gratitude goes to Sheldon Garon, at Princeton, who guided this proj ect from its inception.

  DOI

• Chinese Encyclopedism and the Power of Knowledge

  A Companion to World Literature · 2019-12-19

  other1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Publication of Chinese reference works ( leishu ) and daily‐use compendia ( riyong leishu ) during the late imperial period, 1400–1850, drew on earlier “encyclopedic” book collections in China, which literati had valued while preparing for civil examinations. Speculating about the origins and transformation of gewu (“investigating things”) and related concepts became a key method for acquiring and organizing information in texts. Literati also collected information for some 1350 counties, which officials needed to carry out their official duties. An official could not serve in his home province. In the Mongol period (1280–1368), new types of leishu developed with the steady expansion of printing and popular literacy. A bookish culture reached a broader audience during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) than ever before. Such native collections later became precedents for “early modern” leishu and “modern” nineteenth‐century Western‐style encyclopedias called in Chinese “ Baike quanshu ,” lit., “complete collection containing hundreds of categories.”

  PublisherDOI

• ［翻訳］ベンジャミン・A・エルマン 「感情的苦悶、成功への夢、試験生活」（上）

  Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · 2018-02-28

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDF

• VI. Big Science: Classicism and Conquest

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2018-11-22 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• What China and India once were : the pasts that may shape the global future

  2018-01-01 · 12 citations

  bookSenior author

  Preface Maps Introduction, by Benjamin Elman and Sheldon Pollock Part I 1. Life and Energy, by Kenneth Pomeranz and Sumit Guha 2. Conquest, Rulership, and the State, by Pamela Crossley and Richard M. Eaton 3. Gender Systems: The Exotic Asian and Other Fallacies, by Beverly Bossler and Ruby Lal Part II 4. Relating the Past: Writing (and Rewriting) History, by Cynthia Brokaw and Allison Busch 5. Sorting Out Babel: Literature and Its Changing Languages, by Stephen Owen and Sheldon Pollock Part III 6. Big Science: Classicism and Conquest, by Benjamin Elman and Christopher Minkowski 7. Pilgrims in Search of Religion, by Zvi Ben-Dor Benite and Richard H. Davis 8. Art and Vision: Varieties of World Making, by Eugene Wang and Molly Aitken Afterword: The Act of Comparing (Both Sides, Now), by Haun Saussy and Dipesh Chakrabarty Chronology Chinese and Indian Terms List of Contributors Index

  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Susan Naquin

  30 shared

• Hui-Yu Ts'ai

  Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica

  29 shared

• Yu–Ju Lin

  Taipei Medical University

  29 shared

• Janet Chen

  Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica

  29 shared

• Xiaolan Zhou

  Fudan University

  29 shared

• Wu Mi-Cha

  Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica

  29 shared

• Yi-Wen Chan

  The University of Tokyo

  29 shared

• Eka Suzuki

  Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica

  29 shared

Labs

• UCLA Luskin Center for History and PolicyPI

Education

• Ph.D., History

  University of California, Berkeley

  1985

• M.A., History

  University of California, Berkeley

  1980

• B.A., History

  University of California, Berkeley

  1977

Awards & honors

• Berkeley Prize in 1991