本书选取"士族群体"之考察视角，探讨公元三至九世纪太原士族群体作为有机社会阶层的形成、发展、壮大、崩溃、复兴直至彻底消亡的历史过程。充分利用传世文献和出土石刻，以太原士族群体升降沉浮的历时性特征为切入点，在家族史、地域史和政治史三个维度内拓展深化，揭示了中国中古时期太原士族群体的变迁过程和单体家族的兴衰及其影响因素。(This book selects the "group of aristocratic families" as the angle of investigation and discusses the historical process of the formation, development, expansion, collapse, revival and extinction of the group of Taiyuan aristocratic families as an organic stratum of society from the third to the ninth century AD. The book makes full use of handed-down literature and unearthed stone inscription, takes the diachronic features of the rise and fall of the group of Taiyuan aristocratic families as the entry point and makes extensions in three dimensions of family history, regional history and political history, revealing the changing process of the group of Taiyuan aristocratic families in medieval China and the rise and decline of separate families as well as its influencing factors.)