The Cambridge History of China. Volume 7: The Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644, Part I.by Frederick W. Mote; Denis Twitchett

Review Reviewed Work(s): The Cambridge History of China. Volume 7: The Ming Dynasty, 13681644, Part I. by Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett Review by: Pierre-Etienne Will Source: Pacific Affairs, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 383-385 Published by: Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2760630 Accessed: 13-04-2017 14:56 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Pacific Affairs This content downloaded from 193.52.22.134 on Thu, 13 Apr 2017 14:56:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 193.52.22.134 on Thu, 13 Apr 2017 14:56:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Pacific Affairs have been, more often than not, able and trustworthy collaborators of the regular bureaucracy. The incredible contempt and brutality suffered by the regular bureau- crats when they had to face an emperor-cum-eunuchs coalition are well known, but the volume gives fascinating illustrations of this theme. The remarkable thing, in fact, is that the regime was able to survive so many episodes when irresponsible or even crazy behaviour on the part of the emperor, encouraged by eunuch and/or non-eunuch sycophants, had to be handled by the bureaucracy without sacrificing the forms of the ruler- minister relationship, which would have undermined the system beyond any hope of survival. The great, indeed, surrealistic, example here is the reign of the Zhengde emperor, whose recklessness, unruliness and thirst for military prowess resulted in a unique case of split personality (he invented a fictitious general into whose boots he would slip when it pleased him) and caused the martyrdom of large numbers of protesting officials. As a matter of fact, the Zhengde antics are not a complete discovery to the English-reading public since Ray Huang devoted a score of pages to them in his 1587, A Year of No Significance (New Haven, 1981). The same might be said of other chapters in the volume, whose contributors have published books devoted to the same topics: thus, Lynn Struve on the Southern Ming, Wolfgang Franke on Ming sources, or Ray Huang on the Wanli reign in the above-mentioned 1587. But these authors add new materials and insights to their earlier work. Huang, for example, has a strong and to my eyes rather original section on the Donglin "party," whose non-reformism and ideological narrowness he stresses. His ideas on the minimal and moralistic style of government in which the Ming found themselves trapped a few generations after Zhu Yuanzhang had created the dynasty's "ancestral institutions" receive new formulations as well, although I wonder whether there is not a tendency to overlook the real institutional creativity that some local officials were able to demonstrate at the end of the period, in fiscal and water-control matters in the Lower Yangzi region for instance. There are many other interesting questions raised by the different chapters, but for lack of space I will limit myself to mentioned the one that by its very structure the book constantly brings to the fore, to wit, the role and impact of the emperors themselves. This role appears overwhelming, not only with the energetic and creative founders of the regime, but to the very end of the dynasty and beyond (since, despite the title, the post-1644 Southern Ming are included). The three-century succession of rulers offers a fascinating gallery of contrasting personalities, each of whom puts its imprint on the selection of personnel and style of government. That most emperors during the second half of the dynasty acted negatively, that is, through their caprices or refusals (such as what Ray Huang calls Wanli's "pocket vetos" on p. 543), does not diminish their impact on the course of things. And in fact, there are indications that even notoriously "indifferent" or "hostile" emperors like Jiajing and Wanli did work, read piles of memorials at night, and knew what was going on (see, for example, p. 509 384 This content downloaded from 193.52.22.134 on Thu, 13 Apr 2017 14:56:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Book Reviews on Jiajing, p. 552 on Wanli). Despite the fact that decisions were taken through channels and procedures distasteful to the regular officialdom and that enforcing them entailed much squandering of resources and energy, it remains that the empire was able to get over an astonishing number of grave social and military crises before its final collapse. This resilience might well be the most remarkable feature of the story recounted in this lengthy and fact-laden book, and the one which more than any other invites further reflection. Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris PIERRE-ETIENNE WILL SUN YAT-SEN'S DOCTRINE IN THE MODERN WORLD. Edited by Chu- yuan Cheng. Boulder (Colorado): Westview Press, 1989. 327 pp. US$39.50, cloth. ISBN 0-8133-7498-7. CHU-YUAN CHENG is correct to observe that "little scholarship has been directed" toward Sun Yat-sen's ideas (p. vii), although he seems unaware of the real reason for this dismal state of our research. Many books and articles have been written in Chinese and other languages on the subject but most of them are politically biased and intended to serve partisan interests at the expense of historical objectivity. This, too, constitutes the major weakness of Cheng's edited volume. In his endeavor to "reexamine" Sun's Three Principles of the People, Cheng relies on the analyses of scholars like Jurgen Domes, Ying-shih Yu, Ramon Myers, James Gregor, Gottfried-Karl Kinderman, and Maria Hsia Chang, who are known to favor the Kuomintang and its government in Taiwan. In the preface, Cheng acknowledges the generous support of such prominent Nationalist officials as Chin Hsiao-yi, Yu-ming Shaw and Li Yun-han (p. vii). Some contributors (notably David Chang in chapter 11) are eager to link Sun's ideology to the success of the Taiwan experience, while others (for example, Jurgen Domes in chapter 8) are quick to condemn the Communist rule on the Chinese mainland. Moreover, Yu-long Ling claims that Sun had "choices" between democratic and Communist systems "with respect to the rights of citizens" in 1912 when he helped to overthrow the Manchu dynasty (p. 194). James Gregor and Maria Hsia Chang even suggest that our interpretations of Sun's thought "might very well influence" the formulation of Washington's policy "with regard to the 'two Chinas'" (p. 104). In the end, these essays read more like political pronouncements than scholarly publications. On two important issues, the authors likewise echo the partisan positions of the Kuomintang elites in Taiwan. First, the book assumes that the Three Principles of the People represented the core of Sun's ideology, although they compared poorly with his writings in 1918-1921. When he was preparing for his 1924 lectures on these principles, he was either sick or busily preoccupied with the political and military affairs in Kwangtung. Second, the contributors emphasize Sun's indebtedness to China's cultural heritage (pp. 3, 60, 70-102, 143, 146, 148, 165-66, 228, 290-92). They 385 This content downloaded from 193.52.22.134 on Thu, 13 Apr 2017 14:56:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms