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This book is one in a series on the History of Imperial China under the general editorship of Timothy Brook. In it, William T. Rowe, a distinguished historian of late imperial China, presents a general history of a period that in specialist studies tends to be treated in bite-sized pieces: early Qing, High Qing, the Opium Wars, the 1911 Revolution, and so on. Since historiographical issues tend to vary according to period, a unified history of the Qing written from a fixed standpoint would be a difficult thing to produce, and Rowe has not attempted to write one. Rather, he introduces the dynasty from several different viewpoints, in the course of a journey that ends at a point quite distant from the point of departure--like a journey from the English Civil War to the end of the Edwardian era, which covers a time span comparable to that of the Qing dynasty.
The target readership for the series appears to be broad, embracing the informed reading public as well as China specialists and students of Chinese history. The opening paragraph of the volume helps relate the Qing to its successor state, the People's Republic of China. Contemporary China's major legacy from the Qing, its vast land mass, is established. The formation of the state, the institutions of government, and the operations of the bureaucracy are introduced, alongside...