H.B. Morse: Customs Commissioner and Historian of China - Hardcover

Fairbank, John King; Coolidge, Martha Henderson; Smith, Richard J.

9780813119342: H.B. Morse: Customs Commissioner and Historian of China

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813119340 ISBN 13: 9780813119342

Publisher: Univ Pr of Kentucky, 1995

Hosea Ballou Morse (1855-1934) sailed to China in 1874, and for the next thirty-five years he labored loyally in the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs Service, becoming one of its most able commissioners and acquiring a deep knowledge of China's economy and foreign relations. After his retirement in 1909, Morse devoted himself to scholarship. He pioneered in the Western study of China's foreign relations, weaving from the tangled threads of the Ch'ing dynasty's foreign affairs several seminal interpretive histories, most notably his three volume magnum opus, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (1910-18).
Begun as a labor of love by his protege, John King Fairbank, this lively biography based primarily on Morse's vast collection of personal papers sheds light on many crucial events in modern Chinese history, as well as on the multifaceted Western role in late imperial China, and provides new insights into the beginnings of modern China studies in this country. Unfinished when Fairbank died, the project was completed by his colleagues, Martha Henderson Coolidge and Richard J. Smith.

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About the Author:

John King Fairbank (1907-1991) was Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History at Harvard University.

From Publishers Weekly:

In 1874, Morse (1855-1934), a Canadian by birth, was recruited from the Harvard graduating class to work in the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, which was staffed by Westerners acting as tax collectors and diplomats for the Ch'ing Dynasty (1644-1912). Begun by distinguished Chinese historian Fairbank (China: A New History) and completed by his colleagues Coolidge and Smith after Fairbank's death in 1991, this admiring academic study details Morse's 35-year career in China, where he lived in many different areas and rose to the rank of commissioner. Unfortunately, the ponderous text does not do justice to the dramatic events Morse lived through, such as the Sino- Japanese War and the poisoning of his wife, Nan (who despised the Chinese), by a servant. After his retirement, Morse wrote several histories of China, including The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (1910-1918), which, though well documented, reveal his imperialistic bias. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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