Content area
Full Text
QUEST FOR POWER: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft. By Stephen R. Halsey. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. xi, 346 pp. (Illustrations, map.) US$49.95, cloth. ISBN 978-0-67442565-1.
The question of why China was not colonized by the Western powers during the second half of the nineteenth century has puzzled historians for some time. Stephen Halsey's recent book, Quest for Power, is an attempt at providing the community of scholars specializing in late Qing and Republican China with new insights on the topic. After a brief preface, the book starts with an introduction, which sets the tone of the general argument made by the author throughout the book: the second half of the nineteenth century in China has been overwhelmingly observed by historians-on the mainland and elsewhere-through the lens of what can be termed as a "declinology" paradigm, strongly substantiated by the common understanding according to which that period, especially the late Qing, was marred by corruption and national humiliation. In line with an increasing number of other works which cast doubt on such an historical interpretation, Halsey contends that, as troubled and unstable as they might have been, the years leading to the demise of China's imperial regime ought rather to be considered as the crucible in which were first cast the tools and institutions that were to serve as the foundations for the rise of contemporary China. This longue durée approach is certainly a most welcome methodological option. Unfortunately, the author does not live up to it, leaving it to the epilogue (a mere twenty pages) to describe the evolutions followed by the Chinese state during the Republican period and the second half of the twentieth century. The reader should thus be warned that even though Halsey's aim...