Afterword
My research has always focused on what is called history from the bottom up. I believe that in order to understand a society, and its history, we must look at it not only through the eyes and words of the men at the top but also from the perspective of the little guy, both men and women, at the lower end of the social ladder. This sort of history, however, is not easy to get at and involves tedious research using both conventional and unconventional sources as well as innovative methodologies and lots of imagination. I find my clues to the past not only in dusty archives but also in gritty fieldwork in rundown villages and in beach resorts that were areas once inhabited by bandits and pirates. My interests range from the history of crime and the culture of violence to popular religion and local folkways in late imperial south China....