16th vs. 17th Century Life

Rural Life Comparison: 16th Century France vs. 17th Century China

Natalie Zemon Davis' book The Return Of Martin Guerre is an excellently detailed, understandable and well-researched account of the famous Martin Guerre and his impostor, Arnauld du Tilh. But even further than only outlining the truth of the story, Davis also uses her research to enlighten us on the responsibility of various family members in 16th Century rural French life, the politics of family life and peasant life in general, and the role of the mounting change from Catholicism to Protestantism among the elite as well as the peasant classes. Likewise, in Jonathan D. Spence’s historical novel, The Death of Woman Wang, this describes the rural society which relegated women to second-class citizens. Spence concentrated his novel on county of T’an-ch’eng in the seventeenth century, and referred to examine the Chinese social structure from the bottom, rather than at the top. In this way, Spence attempted t...