孔飞力的著作《叫魂：1768年中国妖术大恐慌》深入剖析了乾隆盛世下的一场离奇社会恐慌。1768年，一种名为“叫魂”的妖术恐惧席卷大清帝国——传言妖人可通过剪人发辫、窃取姓名来勾魂夺魄，致人死地。这场始于浙江的谣言迅速蔓延全国，引发了底层民众的歇斯底里和对边缘人群的肆意指控与私刑。地方官府疲于应付，案件最终直达乾隆皇帝案头。孔飞力以精湛的史学技艺，透过这起看似荒诞的“叫魂案”，揭示了盛世表象下的深层危机：人口压力激化社会矛盾，官僚体系惰性与皇权专制间的紧张，以及普通民众在生存压力下的极度不安全感与寻找“替罪羊”的心理机制。

Philip Kuhn’s seminal work, Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768, meticulously dissects a bizarre wave of mass hysteria that swept through the seemingly prosperous Qing Empire under Emperor Qianlong. In 1768, panic over a feared sorcery technique called “calling souls” (jiao hun) erupted. Rumors spread that sorcerers could steal a person’s soul by clipping their queueor obtaining their name, leading to illness or death. Originating in Zhejiang, the fear rapidly infected much of China, triggering public hysteria and violent accusations, often targeting marginalized groups like beggars, monks, and itinerants. Local officials were overwhelmed, and the cases eventually reached the Emperor himself. Kuhn masterfully uses this seemingly irrational episode of “soulstealing” as a lens to expose profound fissures beneath the Qianlong heyday: intense social strains fueled by population pressure, tensions between an inert bureaucracy and an interventionist imperial autocracy, and the deep-seated insecurities among the populace that drove them to scapegoat the vulnerable.