The challenges for China change—Mongol horse archers in the 13th century, European gunboats in the 19th—but the response remains remarkably steady in this engaging survey of Chinese foreign relations. Historian Gelber (Opium, Soldiers and Evangelicals
) takes a cyclical view of Chinese history. From ancient times, he contends, dynasties underwent patterns of population growth, governmental decay caused by bureaucratic sclerosis and inept emperors (exacerbated by overmighty concubines and court eunuchs), and outside military pressure. This led to chaos and conquest until a new strongman restored order. As crises and foreign incursions come and go, China's insular Confucian culture remains, and so does the sense of cultural superiority—symbolized by the prostration ritual called the kowtow,loathed by Western ambassadors—that enables China to neutralize outside influences. Even the current Communist regime, Gelber argues, is in many ways a traditional imperial dynasty, with foreign policy interests similar to those of the past. The author also assesses China's shifting image in foreign eyes, as either a model of sophisticated order or a cesspool of backward despotism. Gerber is a bit sketchy on the premodern period; his account comes into its own as a lucid, insightful narrative history of China's evolving place in the modern, Western-dominated world order. Maps. (May)
