Outside official history, how did people make a living? The list centers on ways of making a living that rarely enter official histories: obscure trades, occupational groups caught between identities, and ordinary people pushed to the margins by their times. In selecting books, priority goes to works that begin from concrete livelihoods, crafts, identities, and everyday order, rather than discussing institutions alone or merely pursuing the exotic; the list also balances general illustrated records, specialized studies, and street-level memoirs, so that “occupation” returns to the human situation. The list is divided into four parts: the first provides an overview of the hundred trades and vanished livelihoods, helping establish coordinates of “trade—life—era”; the second enters specialized professions caught between identity systems, observing how skills and status shape each other; the third turns to street artisans and folk performers, looking at how lower-class culture made a living through craft and performance; the fourth discusses marginal livelihoods and orders such as prostitution and secret societies, adding a darker social cross-section. I suggest reading the overview first, then choosing topics by interest, and finally entering the case studies of marginal groups. If time is limited, start with the overview and the street artisans, then return to institutions and marginal livelihoods. It is suitable for readers interested in everyday life history, social history, occupational history, urban history, and lower-class culture, and for nonfiction readers who enjoy individual stories and street-level detail. The list does not turn the lower classes into spectacle; it tries to preserve craft, voice, and dignity. You can read the four parts from the overview onward or jump to the trade that interests you most.
Overview of the Hundred Trades and Vanished Livelihoods
As the overview of the whole reading list, it places folk trades back into the everyday fabric of food, clothing, housing, transport, commerce and industry, and culture and entertainment, first letting readers see how 'occupation' is embedded in life. Its illustrated format is well suited to establishing overall coordinates, and later specialized studies can all find their place here. It is especially friendly to readers who want a panorama of the hundred trades first and then to delve in according to interest.
From the perspective of life history, it discusses how people in ancient times made a living, faced life and death, and observed the seasons, bringing into view the lived experience of commoners and even marginal groups such as monks, beggars, and barbers. Compared with books that merely list trades, it pays more attention to how people sustained their livelihoods at different stages of life and confronted illness and old age. Suitable for readers who want to understand the rhythms of subaltern life and experiences of life.
This local urban history writes together the old city's maps and its vanished trades, with livelihoods such as heavy cart pulling, cliff hauling, and badaba serving as entry points into urban memory. It is more concrete than general surveys, allowing readers to see how the disappearance of trades changed ordinary people's livelihoods and urban space. Suitable for readers interested in subaltern urban labor, local memory, and occupational change.
Specialized Professions in the Cracks of Status
This book focuses on the jungin (middle people) group in the Joseon period, positioned between yangban and commoners, including technical professionals such as secondary-status literati, painters, musicians, interpreters, and physicians. It reveals an occupational class restricted by the status system yet participating in cultural production through skill, precisely filling the 'cracks between identities' dimension of the reading list. Suitable for readers concerned with East Asian social history, occupational history, and the marginal situation of intellectuals.
Ritual music households were a special service group in the state ritual and music system of feudal society; this book traces their emergence, functions, management, and disintegration. It examines an obscure occupation within the state ritual system, showing how 'non-untouchable' status coexisted with service corvée. Suitable for readers interested in institutional history, the social history of music, and studies of occupational groups.
Street Artisans and Folk Performers
Drawing on childhood observations in Aburacho, Nihonbashi, during the Meiji era, the author writes about down-and-out samurai, lower-class craftsmen, geisha, and ordinary townspeople in the neighborhood. Rather than institutional analysis, it uses reminiscent essays to preserve street trades and details of life; it reads warmly and can also corroborate artisans' memoirs. Suitable for readers who enjoy the history of everyday urban life and group portraits of people.
This nostalgic essay begins with the author's experiences as a young apprentice, making a living by hand, and meeting a renowned carving master, presenting the ups and downs of half a lifetime of artisans from Edo to Meiji. Craft transmission, apprentice livelihoods, and historical change intertwine, making an obscure occupation not merely a label but a concrete life path. Suitable for readers who want a personal history from an artisan's perspective and a social history of craft.
This book places Pingju opera back into local street culture, discussing how folk artists made a living, created, and disseminated their work amid rural-urban migration and street entertainment. Approaching from the marginal cultural industry of opera, it supplements the 'performer occupation' dimension of the reading list and also shows the relationship between subaltern entertainment and the market. Suitable for readers of cultural history, the social history of art, and opera enthusiasts.
Marginal Livelihoods and Secret Orders
This historical account of Shanghai's prostitution industry studies prostitutes as a marginal occupational group, focusing on gender, modernity, and the discursive situation of lower-class groups. It does not rely on sensationalism but analyzes how this industry was managed, narrated, and survived within urban modernity. Suitable for readers interested in gender history, urban history, and studies of marginal occupations.
This book enters the Paoge organization in rural western Sichuan in the 1940s through a murder case and an old report, observing how a secret society embedded itself in local order. The Paoge were not an occupation in the strict sense, yet they provided identity, protection, and livelihood networks for large numbers of marginal men, precisely presenting the intertwining of 'marginal groups—violence—order.' Suitable for readers who enjoy microhistory and case studies in social history.