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CHINA'S LAST EMPIRE: The Great Qing. By William T. Rowe. Cambridge (MA) and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009. 360 pp. (Maps, illus., B&W photos.) US$35.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-674-03612-3.
To cover almost three centuries of any period in Chinese history is sufficiently daunting, but perhaps no equivalent span embraced so many changes, and consequently forms so great a challenge for the historian, as the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). In China's Last Empire: The Great Qing, a volume in Harvard University Press's ambitious History of Imperial China series, William T. Rowe succeeds eminently in this endeavour. His balanced and coherent overview, couched in engaging prose, is the best single-volume general history of the Qing now available in English.
Roughly equal attention is given to the periods before and after 1800, itself a testament to Rowe's erudite command of the dynasty's entire span. The first half of the book favours a more thematic approach, devoting chapters to "Governance," "Society" and "Commerce." The remainder necessarily gives more attention to l'histoire événementielle, as the imperial government weathered a series of violent internal and external blows...