Encounters with China spans a turbulent century that began when foreigners first secured a foothold in China in the 1840s, and ended when China again retreated into self-imposed isolation following the birth of the People's Republic in 1949. This handsome book evokes an era of extraordinary encounters between East and West, between the aggressive breed of merchants that were a product of Europe's industrial revolution and the complacent mandarins of the world's oldest civilization, the Middle Kingdom of Manchu China.
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