This book takes three social groups—literati, scholar-officials, and merchants—as the framework for discussing the political, socioeconomic, and cultural forces that coalesced and reinforced one another to influence and facilitate change in Ming China’s lower Yangzi delta. It follows the region’s political ties with the state and commercial links with external markets. The book evokes the richly textured life of Ming China’s heartland in an age of commercial and cultural strength, which then descended into distress and despair