Customer Reviews

The Manchus (Peoples of Asia)

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I visited to pick up the paperback of this book, and saw this perplexing comment below. This book and The Last Emperor are apples and oranges. This is a popular book (I got my original copy from History Book Club) and intended for reader's with a general interest, or maybe beginning historians. The book by Evelyn S. Rawski is an academic title, very thorough and erudite. But also the books are not on the same subject. Rawski is about the Manchu emperors, their courts and palaces. The Manchus is much more general. Please do not get confused into thinking that these two books are on the same subject.

Read your typical history book covering Chinese history and you'll get a very distinct picture of the Jurchens and Manchus--about their conquest of china, the corruption of the Qing government (as if no other dynasty had corruption), of the power-hungry Aisio-gioro Nurgaci, founder of the Qing dynasty, and their alien, steppe-nomadic ways. Most Chinese history books have little good or substantive to say about this north-east Asian culture whose term for their religious priesthood was adopted by the West, "Shaman" (Chinese, "saman").

This book takes all that mythology and anti-Manchu rehtoric and blasts it to pieces with a compelling story of a people who have rarely been studied objectively and as a culture separate from the Mongols and Chinese. Nurgaci was not the man of the myths we've heard and never called himself Emperor. In fact for most of his life his title was "beile of the Jianzhou Jurchens". He was a great lord and chieftain of his lineage, but not even an autocrat in his authority, ruling jointly with his brother, Surgaci, for many years.

Besides the myths about Nuragi, many cultural myths are also dispelled. One major one is the assumption that the Manchus were nomads with a steppe culture analogous to the Mongol culture. This book explains how and why this assumption is wrong and is essential to anyone who wants to know the real Manchu people.

I'm only 3 chapters into the book and already know I need to reread it. there's a lot of information for the student of Jurchen and Manchu history!

WELL DONE!!

It's funny to note that at many times the Qing dynasty faced many of the same problems that we see today: overpopulation, government corruption, war against drugs. So much of what we think of as Chinese is also Manchu and was introduced rather recently. Well writen and clear all the way through.

I read this book after Evelyn Rawski's "The Last Emperors" and it did answer & clarified a lot questions I had with regards to the Manchus and how they were like before entering China proper. The chapter on Nurhachi was good as was the section on the inevitable power struggle between Cixi and Guangxu (my only wish that this was elaborated further).
Crossley's book is highly recommended for both casual & serious historians alike. My suggestion is to read this first before Rawski's "The Last Emperors"

I have read a more recent book Evelyn Rawski's "The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions " in which she discusses the context between her book and "The Manchus". The two books are probably quite similar but I think that Rawski's book would contain much more undisclosed material.
I have decided not to change the rating on this book in the interest of fair play.