Review of The Dragon and the Foreign Devils
The Story of China and the World, by Harry G Gelber
The Dragon and the Foreign Devils approaches China’s long history through the country’s relationships with foreign peoples. The book explores how foreign states and peoples have perceived and dealt with China over the centuries, and how China has dealt with them. It is a story of high culture, bloody warfare and all too often cultural misunderstanding.
The Dragon and the Foreign Devils
Written by historian and political scientist Harry Gelber, formerly a Visiting Professor at both Harvard University and the London School of Economics, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Tasmania, The Dragon and the Foreign Devils puts China’s history into a global context.
The book also shines a light on the cyclical nature of Chinese history. A period of upheaval and chaos gives rise to a new dynasty, which, at its peak, expands its power and dazzles visitors. Then China’s perennial problems, such as population growth and warlike barbarian neighbors, make their presence felt once more, giving rise to another period of chaos. Gelber shows it’s a pattern that has persisted into the modern era.
The main narrative is interspersed with sidebars detailing intriguing facets of Chinese history such as the roles played by Marco Polo, the Jesuits, eunuchs, tea and the kowtow. While the newcomer to Chinese history may be confused by the sheer wealth of information, Gelber’s style is both readable and incisive.
Foreign Relations and the Middle Kingdom
A good half of the book is devoted to China’s modern history. Even more than in most places, the twentieth century was a tumultuous period for China. Yet, for all the revolutionary changes China has gone through, Gelber shows that much in Chinese history has remained constant.
Throughout China’s history, the tenor of the country’s foreign relations can at least partially be explained by China’s geography. Bordered by forbidding deserts, high plateaus and thick jungles, the Chinese had no neighboring great civilizations to challenge and intrigue them. As far as the Chinese were considered, their culture was the center of civilization, the Middle Kingdom itself. Other peoples were barbarians, who, if they were lucky and duly deferential, would be taken under the benevolent Chinese wing.
It was mode of thought that proved remarkably persistent, ignoring global developments. The complacent Chinese were thus unprepared when they came into contact with the newly emergent and aggressive cultures of the west, bent on exploration, trade and conquest. The resultant clash, coming at a time when China’s Qing dynasty was weakening, greatly upset the Chinese worldview.
There is a lot of ground to cover in over three thousand years of history, yet Gelber has managed to produce an eminently readable book. The Dragon and the Foreign Devils sheds light, not only on China’s history, but also on modern Chinese attitudes, informed as they are by a long and illustrious past.
The Dragon and the Foreign Devils: China and the World, 1100 BC to the Present, by Harry H. Gelber (Bloomsbury, 2007). 442 pages, ISBN: 9780747593294.
Dragon and the Foreign Devils
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