IN A HARVARD SCHOLAR’S 18TH-CENTURY HISTORY, GLIMPSES OF MODERN CHINA

[In a commentary on the book in 2012, Liu Qing, another history professor at East Normal University (but no relation to his colleague Liu Chang), wrote that the 1768 sorcery scare was not a phenomenon unique to China. He noted witchhunts in medieval Europe and the persecution of those suspected of being Communists by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the United States. Still, Mr. Liu noted something comparable occurring again in his own country.]

By Kiki Zaho

Red Guards brandishing Mao Zedong’s writings demonstrating in front of

the Soviet Embassy in Beijing on Aug. 29, 1966. In a postscript to a

Chinese translation of Philip A. Kuhn’s “Soulstealers: The Chinese

Sorcery Scare of 1768,” the historian Liu Chang drew parallels

between the mass hysteria of the 18th century and Mao’s

Cultural Revolution. Credit Associated Press

BEIJING — How does an autocratic ruler trample on the law? How does a bureaucracy manipulate the ruler? How does a government accommodate people of unconventional lifestyles and beliefs? The Harvard historian Philip A. Kuhn cited these as questions worth exploring in his preface to the Chinese translation of a book he wrote about 18th-century China. His death last month at the age of 82 has revived these questions for those who see striking parallels with contemporary politics.

In “Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768” (Harvard University Press, 1990), Mr. Kuhn examined the mass hysteria that broke out over rumors that sorcerers were roaming the country, cutting off men’s braids and stealing their souls, and what this revealed about the inner functioning of the state. The Qianlong Emperor waged a vigorous campaign against the social unrest as a perceived threat to his rule. Officials eager to demonstrate their loyalty extracted confessions of sorcery from citizens under torture. Ordinary people, gripped by fear, lashed out against the marginalized people of society.

“This book really addresses basic issues in Chinese society and culture,” said Liu Chang, a history professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai and one of the book’s translators, in a telephone interview. “People, to survive, sacrificed others to protect themselves.”

In an article about Mr. Kuhn published shortly after his death, the journalist Song Zhibiao noted how in “Soulstealers,” people brought false charges against outsiders, and officials scrambled to obey the emperor’s order to identify sorcerers and framed the innocent.

“Retribution became the most popular form of attack,” Mr. Song wrote. “Can we say this sorcery phenomenon has disappeared?”

On Sina Weibo, a commenter who said he was reading “Soulstealers” as a tribute to Mr. Kuhn, wrote: “The emperor wanted to control the bureaucracy and the elites to keep the dynasty in power. His subordinates wanted to protect one another to preserve their wealth and status. Commoners had only illusions of power. On the rare occasions when a rebellion was successful, that success merely produced another imperial court.”

The user then quoted a line from the book to summarize his post: “Because the empowerment of ordinary people remains, even now, an unmet promise.”

The translation of “Soulstealers” was published in China in 1999 by Shanghai Joint Publishing Company.

“It has always sold well,” said Huang Tao, the publishing house’s managing editor. “After news came of Mr. Kuhn’s death, many booksellers called us because their stocks were quickly sold out.”

“We’ve sold more than a hundred thousand copies, and sales have been good and stable,” Mr. Huang said in an interview. “It didn’t become a hit book immediately, but after several years, people started to acknowledge it.”

Sales for comparable academic books usually run in the tens of thousands, he said.

On Dangdang, one of China’s largest online bookstores, the book has garnered more than 10,000 comments.

 “The entire bureaucracy is under the emperor’s authoritarian power. In our day, is there anything like this sorcery scare? Well, just don’t try to draw too many parallels,”cautioned one of the commenters on “Soulstealers,” in an apparent reference to the constraints on public discussion of politics in China.

Mr. Liu, the historian, explained the book’s popularity: “Though it’s a book of history, it has vivid plots, suspense and is engaging. So most readers with at least a high school education can understand it.”

It reads like a “detective novel,” he said, while providing a “through analysis” of Chinese society and politics. Many history professors at Chinese universities assign the book to their students, he said.

In a postscript to the 2011 edition of the Chinese translation, Mr. Liu wrote that the mass hysteria Mr. Kuhn described had recurred repeatedly in China.

“And it reached a peak,” Mr. Liu wrote, “in the 1960s and ’70s in the unprecedented Great Revolution,” referring to the Cultural Revolution, when citizens accused one another of being traitors to Mao Zedong, hundreds of thousands were forced to confess political crimes, and at least tens of thousands died.

“Anyone who experienced that time would experience a sense of déjà vu when reading these descriptions by Philip Kuhn,” Mr. Liu wrote.

In a commentary on the book in 2012, Liu Qing, another history professor at East Normal University (but no relation to his colleague Liu Chang), wrote that the 1768 sorcery scare was not a phenomenon unique to China. He noted witchhunts in medieval Europe and the persecution of those suspected of being Communists by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the United States. Still, Mr. Liu noted something comparable occurring again in his own country.

“As I write this, huge anti-Japan protests have erupted in dozens of Chinese cities,” he wrote. “Some have even escalated into violence against fellow Chinese and their property. It’s almost unbelievable.” Mr. Liu argued that such behavior was as “ignorant” and “ridiculous” as the sorcery scare.

Some commenters saw how the Qianlong Emperor’s response to the sorcery scare could be applied to their own lives.

“I work at a state-owned company,” Ye Jiazhou wrote on a website discussing the book. “Every time I see our leaders demand that their underlings do irrational things, I think of the Qianlong Emperor and Philip Kuhn.”

Follow Kiki Zhao on Twitter @kikizhao.

@ The New York Times