A new book looking at the epic story of foreign impact on China from the early 19th century to the start of the First World War, and based on research funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), has received rave reviews in the Financial Times and the Sunday Times.

Written by Professor Robert Bickers of the University of Bristol, the research for the book was done in archives in China and the UK, funded by the AHRC and the British Inter-university China Centre.

The Sunday Times describes The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832-1914 as “compelling, erudite and clear sighted” as it tells a story that is crucially important to our understanding of China today.

Reviewing the book for the Financial Times, Lord Patten, who is chancellor of the University of Oxford and a former governor of Hong Kong, said “At every airport bookshop, the business traveller is offered shelves of volumes that purport to tell us how an emerging, powerful China will deal with the world, and how the rest of us should make the most of the commercial opportunities opened up by its rise. Those who wish to understand these issues more closely might be better advised to read this fair and fascinating account of a century that filled the pages of the Chinese Dictionary of National Humiliation.”

The book begins just before the First Opium War when China remained almost untouched by Britain and other European powers. Ferocious laws forbade all trade with the West outside one tiny area of Canton, and anyone teaching a European to speak Chinese was executed.

But as new technology began to unbalance the relationship, foreigners gathered like wolves around the weakening Qing Empire. Humiliated by military disaster, racked by rebellions that cost millions of lives and ultimately invaded by thousands of foreign soldiers during the Boxer Rebellion, the fate of China hung in the balance.

Professor Bickers said: “The history of Sino-foreign interaction is very well known in China today, and is embedded in its education system and museums as part of a ‘Patriotic Education’ movement. It's a very important part of modern Chinese nationalism and modern Chinese identity but it's largely unknown in the West, and especially so in Britain.

“The overall aim of this book is to show to Western readers what the British and others did in China, but also why they did it. This saga still matters in China, and if anything has become more important and prominent over the last 20 years.”

“Preparing this book involved long periods of research overseas, in archives and libraries, and on the ground, visiting the sites it discussed. Its composition was also aided by interaction with scholars at other institutions, especially in China, but not only there, when parts were delivered as papers or lectures. Support from the AHRC through its various schemes was vital to all of this, and I believe remains vital to the effective engagement internationally of British-based scholars.”

An international conference on Sino-British relations, convened by Professor Bickers, will be held at the University of Bristol in August 2011.

The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832-1914 is published by Penguin

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AHRC Media Contact Jake Gilmore j.gilmore@ahrc.ac.uk Tel: 01793 41 6021
 
Notes to editors:
 
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC): Each year the AHRC provides approximately £112 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from languages and law, archaeology and English literature to design and creative and performing arts. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,300 postgraduate awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.