CHINA'S RESPONSE TO THE WEST : A Documentary Survey, 1839-1923

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954. 1st Edition, 3rd Printing . Hardcover. Near Fine/Good. Text/NEW & Bright. 1954 First Edition, 3rd Printing of 1965. Green linen, silver embossed boards/NF w/trace discoloration/NF. DJ/Good; Strong & intact w/edge wear & discoloration & water splash to lower back. Prize socio-economic political review of modern Chinese historical burdens & misgivings of the past --- all much alive. This scholarly study spans horrors known by over 3 generations of concerted Drug Wars of 1839 & 1842 from Britain against China still remembered. The British so freely consumed on their insatiable addiction for China's teas & porcelain that it threatened their silver on-hand as the Chinese had no interest in English goods. The British government (using it's East Indian Company), cooperating w/British merchants (corruption, hired?), smuggles so much India grown opium into China that by 1839, opium "sales" to China actually paid for the entire tea trade silver had drained! Consequent rise of "opium dens" & social costs led to the Boxer Rebellion, the 1841 cessation of Hong Kong (expanded 1898 to include the Kowloon Peninsula & New Territory, as a 99-year lease to Britain), the fall of the Ch'ing Dynasty (1639-1912), and rise of the Kuomingtang (retreated to Taiwan after the 1950 adoption of Communism of the Mainland under Mao Tse-tung) gives an in sight to issues of modern China's relationships w/Russia via Communism, and, given a now weak Britain, transfer both suspicions & revenge to British colonized USA. 294 pgs, 28 chapters w/translations of key documents, 28 chapters, 7 parts: I, The Problem & It's Background; II, Recognition of China's Need to Know the West, 1839-1860; III, The Desire for Western Technology, 1861-1870; IV, Efforts at Self-Strengthening, 1871-1896; V, Reform Movement Through 1900; VI, Reform & Revolution, 1901-1912; and VII, Ideological Ferment & the May Fourth Movement, 1912-1923, followed by Postface: A Further Approach to the Problem, & Index.