Anglo-Chinese Encounters Before the Opium War
A Tale of Two Empires Over Two Centuries
1st Edition
Published on 12. August 2022
354 pages
978-1-000-63756-4 (ISBN)
Description
Anglo-Chinese Encounters Before the Opium War: A Tale of Two Empires Over Two Centuries studies the fascinating encounters between the two historic empires from Queen Elizabeth I's first letter to the Ming Emperor Wanli in 1583, to Lord Palmerston's letter to the Minister of China in 1840.
Starting with Queen Elizabeth I's letter to the Chinese Emperor and ending with the letter from Lord Palmerston to the Minister of China just before the Opium War, this book explores the long journey in between from cultural diplomacy to gunboat diplomacy. It interweaves the most known diplomatic efforts at the official level with the much unknown intellectual interactions at the people-to-people level, from missionaries to scholars, from merchants to travelers and from artists to scientists. This book adopts a novel "mirror" approach by pairing and comparing people, texts, commodities, artworks, architecture, ideologies, operating systems and world views of the two empires. Using letters, gifts and traded goods as fulcrums, and by adopting these unique lenses, it puts China into the world history narratives to contextualise Anglo-Chinese relations, thus providing a fresh analysis of the surviving evidence. Xin Liu casts a new light on understanding the Sino-centric and Anglo-centric world views in driving the complex relations between the two empires, and the reversals of power shifts that are still unfolding today.
The book is not intended for specialists in history, but a general audience wishing to learn more about China's historical engagement with the world.
Starting with Queen Elizabeth I's letter to the Chinese Emperor and ending with the letter from Lord Palmerston to the Minister of China just before the Opium War, this book explores the long journey in between from cultural diplomacy to gunboat diplomacy. It interweaves the most known diplomatic efforts at the official level with the much unknown intellectual interactions at the people-to-people level, from missionaries to scholars, from merchants to travelers and from artists to scientists. This book adopts a novel "mirror" approach by pairing and comparing people, texts, commodities, artworks, architecture, ideologies, operating systems and world views of the two empires. Using letters, gifts and traded goods as fulcrums, and by adopting these unique lenses, it puts China into the world history narratives to contextualise Anglo-Chinese relations, thus providing a fresh analysis of the surviving evidence. Xin Liu casts a new light on understanding the Sino-centric and Anglo-centric world views in driving the complex relations between the two empires, and the reversals of power shifts that are still unfolding today.
The book is not intended for specialists in history, but a general audience wishing to learn more about China's historical engagement with the world.
More details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
32 Halftones, black and white; 32 Illustrations, black and white
ISBN-13
978-1-000-63756-4 (9781000637564)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
05/2024
1st Edition
Routledge
€64.40
Shipment within 15-20 days
Book
08/2022
1st Edition
Routledge
€208.40
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Xin Liu is a Senior Lecturer and Chair of the China Research Center at the University of Central Lancashire. She received her PhD and MBA from the same university. Her other monograph, China's Cultural Diplomacy: A Great Leap Outward?, was published by Routledge in 2020.
Content
0. Introduction: 1583-1840, from cultural diplomacy to gunboat diplomacy, 1. Where the tale of the two empires began, 2. The Tributary System and the first Anglo-British encounters, 3. The earliest Chinese travellers to the Far West, 4. Chinoiserie vs. Euroiserie: Mutual reflections of material culture and perception gaps, 5. When the lion meets the dragon: Lost in translation or beyond translation?, 6. The Amherst Embassy to China, an insurmountable generation gap between the two empires, 7. From the Tea War to the Opium War, 8. Conclusion: The two great reversals - Historical implications on the modern-day interactions between a post-Brexit UK and a globalising China
