The Cambridge Illustrated History Of China Chapter Analysis

The Chapter 9 of The Cambridge Illustrated History of China narrates the history of Qing Dynasty from 1644 to 1900. The most impressing part is that the author, Patricia B. Ebrey, stresses the role of common people in the development of the history. However, there is the Orientalism within the narrative to some extent. The narratives of Meng Sen, Hsü Chung-yueh, and Jonathan D. Spence will be used to compare with Ebrey’s narrative to demonstrate the arguments.

The strength of Ebrey’s narrative of Qing is that common people are narrated and analyzed to reconstruct the history and reflect the background of the time from them, but not only the macro history narrative about the whole dynasty affairs in this chapter.

Ebrey dedicates a significant
For example, Meng, a Chinese historian, suggests that Qing’s success owed to three measures: the claim of rescuing people from suffering, the abolition of surtaxes, and the inheritance of Ming government institutions. Similarly, Spence, an American historian, also states that the adaptation to China is one of the reasons for Manchu’s success, besides the other two factors: Manchu’s capable leaders and the good cooperation with Han people. In brief, these two historians believe that one of the reasons of Qing’s success is that Manchus inherited the legacy of Ming. On the contrary, Ebrey argues that the fact that Manchus are not Chinese makes contribution to the success of Qing. In another word, Ebrey implies that the Chinese institutions and culture were disadvantaged, and defects were developing within it since that
Meng describes two of the causes of Opium War are British’s demand of an entrepot like Macau to Portugal, and the heavy expropriation of tariff from Canton system. Hsü Chung-yueh argues that the discrepant understandings of international relations, trade and jurisprudence led to the inevitable conflicts between China and Britain. Therefore, the Opium war is inevitable. Spence’s statement that there are several accounts for the outbreak of the Opium War: the chaos had appeared within the China society; more and more people were addicted to Opium; the antipathy of Chinese for foreign culture and people; foreigners refused to accept Chinese laws; the changes of international trade; the western scholars did not admire China anymore, and the problem of Canton System. It can be clearly seen that Meng’s explanations for the reason of outbreak of the Opium War are established on Britain’s commercial interests and demands. Though Hsu and Spence’s arguments are also involved in the differences between China and Britain, they offer other causes and do not give the judgment of superiority or inferiority between the west and the east world. By contrast, it seems that there are signs that Ebrey’s narratives show the superiority of Europe and the stress of the differences between China and