'In this groundbreaking study, Stephen Jones brings to light the service of Daoist rites among common people in northern China and compares them with what until now have been far better researched Daoist ritual performances in southern China. From his extensive fieldwork, he provides convincing evidence that distinctive Daoist ritual traditions are deeply embedded in rural northern China.' Stephan Feuchtwang, London School of Economics, UK Stephen Jones' twenty years of fieldwork with Daoists and musicians in north China come to full blossom with this superb book. Its comparative project is admirably ambitious, looking at key rituals done very differently across an area as wide as Europe; yet the writing always remains lively, witty and focused on actual people and performance rather than theories. Vincent Goossaert, CNRS, author of The Taoists of Peking 'This book is an invaluable work of ethnography, and a landmark accomplishment in the study of Chinese religion. The author comes to the topic with a background of field experience that is virtually unmatched. Beyond this, Jones is deeply versed in Anglophone literature, but also engages a vast amount of Chinese scholarship. The book itself is more encyclopedic than narrative. It is exceedingly well indexed, and will be irreplaceable as a work of reference...I would place this book on a par with the great ethnographic studies of the 1930s and 1940s. Like them, I expect that it will remain unsurpassed for many years to come.' China Quarterly '... anyone who works on Chinese folk beliefs should appreciate the author's excellent work in providing valuable fieldwork data, in synthesizing the studies on the subject, and in establishing the focus on the performances of folk ritual specialists in North China.' Journal of Folk Research 'One of the most thorough and careful studies of the decade, this well-written, carefully researched, and highly entertaining study of what the author calls folk Daoists of N