Timothy Brook's book, The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China is a detailed account of the three centuries of the Ming dynasty in China. The book provides an opportunity to visualize this important period in Chinese history. Confusions of Pleasure chronicles not only the economic development of the Ming dynasty, but also the resulting cultural and social changes that transformed the nobility and merchant class. Brook's ideas highlight the gap between the idealized beliefs of the Ming dynasty and the realities of its economic expansion and its effects. Brook describes this gap through the use of several first-hand accounts from individuals with different social statuses. Traditionally, the Confucian model of society was organized with the nobility at the very top and the merchants as the class at the bottom (Brook, p. 134).Examination System. It was precisely this system that allowed a man named Zhang Tao to obtain a position among the nobility. Zhang Tao would become a mid-level bureaucrat in the late Ming period. Written only once, Zhang Tao is considered a minor figure in Ming dynasty history (Brook, p. 6). Nonetheless, Brook uses Zhang Tao as a retrospective of the nearly three centuries of dynasty that preceded him. However, as a moralist, Zhang Tao idealized the early Ming period. His comments are taken from his writings published in the Sheh County Gazetteer (Brook, p. 87). Borrowing this format from Zhang Tao, Brook uses the seasons to divide the different periods of the Ming dynasty. The first segment, Winter, archives the early years of the Ming dynasty between 1368 and 1450. The social hierarchy of the early Ming dynasty was based on property. of earth (Brook, p. 79). One way to describe increasing power...... middle of paper...... ok, p. 251). Brook also uses characters from various stories from Li Le's commonplace book Miscellaneous Notes on Things Seen and Heard to contrast the nostalgic memories of Zhang Tao and Gu Yanwu (Brook, p. 254). What Brook determines from Li Le's account is crucial: "...whatever way commerce has replaced paternalism and deference with the wage relationship, or whatever the ability of some individuals to cross social barriers and to climb the social ladder…the class system of suzerainty and deference which held the Chinese world together in the early Ming was still there at the end” (Brook, p. 260). This ultimately leads to Brook's analysis: "Without trade networks, many nobles would not have survived the dynastic transition" (Brook, p. 262). This conclusion reveals the ultimate disparity between the ideology of the Ming nobility and reality..