Gods of Mount Tai

At the intersection of art and religious history, this work suggests a fresh method for studying Chinese gods and sacred places. Susan Naquin tells the full story of the transformations of the Lady of Mount Tai, North China’s most important female deity, and her mountain home. This generously illustrated visual history presents a rich array of overlooked statues, prints, murals, and paintings of gods that were discovered in museums, auctions, and extensive travel. By focusing on ordinary images, temples, and region-based materiality Naquin demonstrates how this flexibly gendered new god flourished while her male predecessor was neglected. Both suffered greatly during the last century, but Mount Tai continues to be a culturally significant monument and China’s most popular tourist mountain.

Winner of the 2024 Levenson Prize (Pre-1900) awarded by the Association for Asian Studies.
https://www.asianstudies.org/aas-2024-prizes/

Susan Naquin is a historian of late imperial China. Professor Emerita of History and East Asian Studies at Princeton University, she is the author of many books and articles on social and cultural life, including Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400-1900.

"Susan Naquin’s Gods of Mount Tai: Familiarity and the Material Culture of North China, 1000–2000 is a groundbreaking work that shifts the paradigm to locate Mount Tai in the regional materiality of everyday culture in the Greater North China plain (...) Naquin’s book is a comprehensive history and an unprecedented contribution to our knowledge of Mount Tai and its gods from the perspective of material culture in North China. (...) Much more than local case studies of a regional cult, Gods of Mount Tai is an illuminating point of reference for specialists in the fields of religious studies and Chinese history, as well as scholars interested in the study of material culture across any discipline." - Zhujun Ma, Brown University, Journal of the American Oriental Society 143.3 (2023).