Customer Reviews

Opium War to the May Fourth Movement: Volume 2

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This review refers to both volumes of Dr Hu's history as published by the Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, in English in 1991. The translation of these volumes, by Mr Dun J Li, is from the Chinese version published in 1981.

After a brief review of early Western penetration along the Chinese coast, the book focuses on approximately 80 years starting from the first Anglo-Chinese War. It has one over-riding value for the student of this period of Chinese history, it is derived from Chinese sources - books, letters and memorials - most of which have previously been unavailable in English and it is from the views contained in these sources that the book's fascination arises. I cannot over-state the value to the student of seeing this period with Chinese eyes and the book is worth buying for this reason alone. Having said that there are difficulties with the text.

Dr Hu is a self-taught historian. He became a party member when he was 20 years old and wrote 'Imperialism and Chinese Politics' ten years later in 1947 (also available in English but I have not read it). This latest work (published when he was in his sixties) couched in Marxist terminology, but with occasional references to Morse and other lesser known Western authorities, reviews the period from the standpoint of class struggle. This novel approach helps to bring out aspects of Western aggression against China that are not readily apparent from the Western sources. For example, the increasing loss of prestige of the Ching Government with the Chinese people following the Anglo-Chinese Wars is presented here as a cause of the myriad rebellions that characterised the period from the Tai Pings to the Boxers. The derivative insight - that when Western aggression exposed the Ching Government's incapacity, all the subsequent problems that Western countries experienced were bound to happen - is quite compellingly put. This is the value of a book that deals with a familiar subject using new source material and it is very welcome.

However, Dr Hu has an ideological axe to grind and he is not content to let the story tell itself. Had he done so, the power of the facts would have achieved his purpose. There can be no doubt that China was treated by the West in a way that would have been inconceivable had it been a European country, but this book was apparently written for a domestic audience. Thus on every page, mixed in with the interesting quotations and factual information, are opinions and analyses, some of which are insightful, others surprising while quite some few are frankly implausible. The main source of the implausible opinions offered is apparently a lack of familiarity with the realities of international diplomacy and the strict limits those realities place on the exercise of a country's self-interest. I should have preferred these opinions and comments to be annexed as separate chapters or perhaps the two volumes re-edited to produced one of fact and one of opinion. In that way the student will not be confused. A further but minor difficulty is with the place and personal names which are in Pinyin. A glossary would have been helpful.

This book will be most appreciated by those students who have already acquired a detailed knowledge of the period from Western sources and seek for comparative information. As a check on some of the tacit assumptions underlying Western histories it is very useful. I recommend it.

Both of Hu Sheng's histories, this one as well as his classic "Imperialism and Chinese Politics", provide badly-needed purely Chinese perspective on modern Chinese history and China's struggle with the West from late Qing dynasty onward. Hu Sheng's attack is powerful, fresh, insightful, startling, and, yes, appropriately angry. The anecdotes and sources, taken from Chinese language histories, are extremely valuable, and largely unavailable in English language histories of China. Do not be put off with Hu Sheng's political affiliations. His views are shared by Chinese across the spectrum, all over the world. In a world in which establishmentarian Western scholars have so badly clouded, neutered,inculcated and "made safe" the history of China, and the Chinese side of the story, Hu Sheng's analysis is a treasure.

I have made some comments on this volume that may be found in the review for Volume One of Dr Hu's work.