LAWS OF THE LAND: FENGSHUI AND THE STATE IN QING DYNASTY CHINA. By Tristan G.Brown. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2023. Pp. xxviii +325. Hardback, $45.00.

Brown is right to note from the outset of this volume that “From today's stand point, the law court probably would be the last place to go looking for fengshui.” What this volume, therefore, seeks to do—namely to examine how during “the Qing period, the legal system was one of fengshui's most recognizable arenas of play”—proves to be a most unique and interesting line of inquiry in a field that is not lacking in research. This volume specifically draws upon a plethora of legal cases and technical manuals and makes the claim that fēngshuǐ 風水 was “interwoven with Qing governance.” Indeed, Brown goes as far as to assert that there existed “a practical blurring of the line between law and fengshui, with people constantly invoking fengshui in law, as law.” The volume is divided into five chapters, with the first four covering, for the most part, the early 1800s to 1870s and the fifth chapter focusing on 1870s to 1912. The first chapter examines grave litigation. Brown asserts that “significant protections lent to gravesites, coupled with the law's requirements for bodily burial, coincided with extra ordinary popular demand for auspicious burial land,” and this chapter primarily focuses on the tension that arose due to this. The second chapter examines geomantic maps and “shifts away from why courts engaged fengshui to how they did so.” Crucially, taking the case of the Nánbù court, Brown emphasizes the importance of fēngshuǐ, revealing that during the last century of Qīng rule, the “court mapped more landscapes in dispute because of graves and fengshui than any other category of property lawsuit.” The third chapter examines the use of fēngshuǐ in gentry petitions pertaining to civil examinations and notes how “magistrates actively tried to improve local fengshui by moving educational structures, building pagodas, and pro tecting culturally sensitive landscapes.” Chapter Four specifically pertains to mining in Sìchuān, particularly the interplay between those who sought to utilize Qīng law that “recognized fengshui as a valid reason to ban mining” to exert control over mineral extraction in various localities and “sought insurance against litigation, often through employing their knowledge of fengshui or hiring resourceful ritual specialists, particularly Daoists.” The final chapter seeks to reevaluate what Brown describes as “the infamous debates over in dustrialization.” Herein, Brown argues that “Qing opponents of industrialization were not naïve or technophobic [… but instead] cited the evidence of natural disasters and social unrest to argue that dynastic and provincial fortunes were seriously declining—and that harmed fengshui was a reason.” This volume gives an excellent insight into fēngshuǐ during the Qīng. However, of debatably greater import, this volume offers a fascinating lens into the broader Qīng religious landscape: Brown's use of legal cases successfully demonstrates the extent to which fēngshuǐ, and more broadly popular religion, is deeply and intricately embedded in everyday life. This volume would be deeply interesting to those with an interest in Chinese religion and also those with an interest in religion and law.