Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China
Timothy Brook
 Praying for Power is divided into three main sections: In Part 1, "The Culture of Buddhism", Brook reviews the development of religious philosophy and politics and the new familiarity with, and openness toward, Buddhism, in what was a Confusianism-dominated society. In Part 2, "Monastic Patronage'", the author investigates the contributions of the new elite class of gentry, made in the form of "land donations; money and materials for building and renovation; exercise of social and political influence to forward and protect monastic interests; and 'literary patronage,' the composition of admiring poems and essays or the compilation and printing of an institutional history to elevate the prestige of a given monastery." In Part 3, "Patronage in Context", the author examines in detail patronage by the gentry in three distinct counties: one poor, "where Buddhist institutions were not well developed"; a second rich, where they flourished; and a third "in peculiar circumstances that allow Brook to highlight the ambiguous position of the county magistrate vis-à-vis monastic patronage."