Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Notes to Readers -- Introduction -- Part I. Identity At the Heart of Empire -- 1. Ethnicity in the Qing Eight Banners. Mark C. Elliott -- 2. Making Mongols. Pamela Kyle Crossley -- 3. "A Fierce and Brutal People": On Islam and Muslims in Qing Law. Jonathan N. Lipman -- Part II: Narrative Wars At the New Frontiers -- 4. The Qing and Islam on the Western Frontier. James A. Millward and Laura J. Newby -- 5. The Cant of Conquest: Tusi Offices and China's Political Incorporation of the Southwest Frontier. John E. Herman -- Part III. Old Contests of the South and Southwest -- 6. The Yao Wars in the Mid-Ming and their Impact on Yao Ethnicity. David Faure -- 7. Ethnicity and the Miao Frontier in the Eighteenth Century. Donald S. Sutton -- 8. Ethnicity, Conflict, and the State in the Early to Mid-Qing: The Hainan Highlands, 1644-1800. Anne Csete -- Part IV. Uncharted Boundaries -- 9. Ethnic Labels in a Mountainous Region: The Case of She "Bandits". Wing-hoi Chan -- 10. Lineage, Market, Pirate, and Dan: Ethnicity in the Pearl River Delta of South China. Helen F. Siu and Liu Zhiwei -- Conclusion -- Notes On Contributors -- Bibliography -- Glossary of Characters -- Index.