Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft

Stephen R. Halsey

Published by Harvard University Press 2015

Quest for Power

European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft

Stephen R. Halsey

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674089129

Overview
Contents

About this book

China’s late-imperial history has been framed as a long coda of decline, played out during the Qing dynasty. Reappraising this narrative, Stephen Halsey traces the origins of China’s current great-power status to this so-called decadent era, when threats of war with European and Japanese empirestriggered innovative state-building and statecraft.

Reviews

This is an outstanding new study of Imperial China’s relationship with the Western powers in the middle of the nineteenth century. Halsey offers surprisingly fresh data, many from the local archives, and shows that the conventional story of China’s meek ‘response’ to the West is extremely one-sided. The book convincingly demonstrates that the Chinese authorities, at the center as well as at the local level, had a rather sophisticated understanding of the international situation and took the initiative to undertake administrative and political reforms to cope with the situation.
-- Akira Iriye, editor of Global Interdependence

A bold argument about modern Chinese statecraft that finds nineteenth-century China successful in forging a military–fiscal state worthy of comparison with familiar European examples of modern national state formation. In contrast to recent American scholarship seeking to put China into the broader African and Asian world of European colonialism, the author argues the political significance of China not becoming a formal colony, and offers a fresh account and challenging interpretation about the origins of the modern Chinese state.
-- R. Bin Wong, co-author of Before and Beyond Divergence

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction: State-Making and Empire in a World-Historical Context Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Europe’s Global Conquest Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
2. Foreign Trade Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
3. Money Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
4. Bureaucracy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
5. Guns Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	146
6. Transportation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	184
7. Communication Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
Epilogue: State- Making in China, 1850–1949 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	238
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	337

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Pages
- Main content: 360
Illustrations
- Other: 1 map, 6 graphs, 10 tables

eBook

Published: October 12, 2015
ISBN: 9780674089129