| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Evelyn S. Rawski. The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions. (A Philip E. Lilienthal Book.) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1998. Pp. xi, 481. $45.00.

This book by Evelyn S. Rawski is a major contribution to recent scholarship in Qing history. Relying on newly opened Manchu-language archives, Rawski's study presents a fresh analysis of the political culture of the Manchu conquest elite in the inner recesses of the Qing court. Rawski contends that the "Sinicization" thesis held among prominent historians (such as the late Mary C. Wright) is mistaken in its attempt to explain the Qing's successful control over its vast multicultural empire. She also claims that throughout the entire Qing dynasty "the Qing rulers kept their Manchu identity" (p. 4) and proposes "an alternative interpretation of the historic significance of this dynasty" (p. 299). 1

After laying out her premises in an introduction, Rawski devotes part one (chapter one) to a description of the "material culture" of the Qing court and its distinctive ruling policies, of which "separation" and "compartmentalization" were the two guiding principles. The system of multiple capitals (with Beijing as the empire's primary one) was adopted for "spatial" separation in order to facilitate the implementation of "culturally separated" imperial policies toward the three major ethnic groups of the empire. 2

Part two, on the "social organization of the Qing court," consists of four chapters. Chapter two analyzes the imperial lineage and the conquest elite that played a vital role in the imperial control polices toward the northeast and Inner Asian peripheries. The chapter also describes the Qing rulers' method of limiting their kinsmen's political autonomy to avoid the pitfalls of "inner circle" subversion that had plagued the Ming court. . . .

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