China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience

"This is a most extraordinary book. Wong's approach is to explore carefully similarities and differences between Chinese and European development over the long term, highlighting themes related to state-making and popular action. This is by far the most sophisticated, extended discussion of imperial and modern China in comparative perspective that I have seen."--Peter C. Perdue, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The assumption still made in much social science research that Europe provides a universal model of development is fundamentally mistaken, according to R. Bin Wong. The solution is not, however, simply to reject Eurocentric norms but to build complementary perspectives, such as a Sinocentric one, to evaluate current understandings of European developments. A genuinely comparative perspective, he argues, will free China from wrong expectations and will allow those working on European problems to recognize the distinct character of Western development.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Masterly, 2007-04-05
I really enjoyed this book; it's theme of needing to look at Europe from a Chinese perspective in order to gain symmetry needs greater currency. But it's for the expert, not the amateur.


1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Understanding China, 2005-11-07
This book, as the author says in some ways a series of essays, attempts to elucidate the patterns of Chinese imperial history and to correct the tendency to mis-understand China through applying inappropriately generalised European conceptions to it. These two goals it achieves well.

The book fails to grapple with the demographic costs of some of the events covered -- most notably Maoist rule, but also the Taiping rebellions and the Manchu invasion. This is both a moral and an analytical failing, since such experiences explain much of the power of appeals to order regularly used by Chinese rulers.

Bin Wong also overstates the role of culture as an explanation. Thus, I was struck by the number of parallels with the Roman imperium that Bin Wong's explanation of the development of Chinese imperial rule suggested. You could make a good case that, if the history of the Mediterannean basin had been a series of iterations of the Roman Empire of the Antonines, then one would have ended up with a state much like the late Imperial Chinese state.

Looking at the similar C19th experiences, but very different trajectories, of China and Japan, largely ignored by Bin Wong, also points to the power of institutional factors. Bin Wong does show that the Qing regime made greater efforts to deal with the Western challenge but it had to both industrialise *and* build appropriate institutional structures to mobilise social resources in new ways. Japan already had the institutions, to which it added a Western gloss, so it could concentrate on industrialising.

But it is a sign of the strength of the book that one can fruitfully consider such matters. I found it a very approachable way of becoming much better informed on Chinese history.


12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

Interesting but Uneven, 2000-06-23
This interesting book is an attempt to look at Chinese history in an unbiased manner. Professor Wong notes correctly that interpretations of many scholars are distorted by judging Chinese history by its deviations from what is presumed to be the normative, or desired, course of development. The normative standards, of course, are derived from European history. Wong makes the very good point that using European history in this way is damaging not only to the study of Chinese history but also imposes distortions on the study of European history. Wong is concerned particularly with examining Chinese economic development and state formation. This book covers a very wide sweep of Chinese history, roughly from the Ming to contemporary China. The book is divided into 3 components; one comparing China and Europe in the pre-industrial period of the 17th and 18th centuries, one looking at the response of the Chinese state and society to the great challenges of the 19th century, and one looking at the response of the Chinese state and society to social unrest. The first third of the book is the best. The analysis of pre-industrial China is really interesting and Wong makes a set of very interesting points. He demonstrates well that the economic differences between China and pre-industrial Europe have been exaggerated. He then examines the unique character of the Chinese state. Again, the comparison with European political development is illuminating. This section achieves Wong's goal of treating Chinese history as an autonomous phenomenon but maintaining a useful comparative perspective. The second part of the book is quite good and the discussion of the problems faced by the 19th century Chinese state and its responses is interesting. Again, there are interesting comparisons with European states. The final section is the least interesting. It adds little to carrying forward Wong's basic project of establishing the autonomy of studying Chinese history. Indeed, I see little that departs from prior conventional interpretations. This section in particular suffers also from Wong's attempt to cover such a broad range of Chinese history and at times has a superficial quality. Wong is generally a clear writer but sometimes slips into what might be called post-modernist academic jargon. For example, the narrative (used to mean analysis) appears often, as does discourse (ditto), and privilege appears as a verb. This is not a major defect but is irritating.


4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Interesting But Uneven, 2000-06-17
This is a very ambitious attempt to free the study of Chinese history from somewhat inappropriate perspectives. Wong correctly criticizes many prior views of China as baised by viewing European history as normative and then studyng China as a deviation from European norms. He argues this is a particular problem in studies of economic development and state formation. He attempts to avoid this trap by comparing Chinese and European history in an unbiased by not relativistic format that he hopes will cast light on the distinctive features of both European and Chinese history. Ths book consists of 3 major parts; Economic history and Development, State Formation, and a section on Protest and Social Change. The scope of the book is very ambitious, spanning the Ming period up to Communist and contemporary China. The first parts of the book, dealing with economic development and the features of the Imperial state, are the most interesting. Here Wong is able to demonstrate both the interesting similarities in pre-industrial development and the considerable differences in state structure/formation. This is a nice, balanced overview with considerable analytic power. Later portions of the book are not as strong. Having made his essential points, a good part of the second half of the book is repetitive. The sections dealing with the problems of the 19th century Chinese state are quite good but the third part of the book, dealing with social protest is relatively thin and adds little to the essential argument. Wong would have been better off restricting the scope of the book and deepening the analysis. One thing that impressed me about the second half of Wong's book is that his interpretation doesn't seem truly different from conventional analyses with the difference being largely a matter of terminology. A minor defect is that while Wong is a clear writer there are times when he slips into post-modernist (or whatever you want to call it) academic jargon. The words narrative (used to describe analysis), discourses (ditto), and privilege (as a verb) are sprinkled throught the text. Sloppy.

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