| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 104.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 255 words from this article are provided below; about 572 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 104.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

J. Y. Wong. Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism, and the Arrow War (1856–1860) in China. (Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 1998. Pp. xxx, 542. $69.95.

Suggestive of little beyond horrors of an uncertain sort, this book's title may at first bewilder the reader. The subtitle, on the other hand, may be useful, for it soon becomes apparent that an incident involving the ship Arrow, off Canton on October 8, 1856, precipitated a war of some scale. As the book proceeds, the reader encounters the Arrow again and again and again; it is the key to this formidable work of well over 500 pages. 1

"What caused the war? Imperialism, many would simply say," begins J. Y. Wong "But what is imperialism?" (p. 1). His table of contents answers for him; the eighteen chapters that compose the text are distributed among seven sections, each of which trumpets the magic term. "The Confusion of Imperialism," reads the first, "The Pretext for Imperialism," the second, and so on. Imperialism undefined is scattered generously all about the book, on the implicit assumption that in this day and age we accept as given that the term denotes the West's behavior toward Others, unconscionable, unforgivable, and uniform. Imperialism is what the book is about. It is to be approached through the key just mentioned, and that key dismisses narrative. "Let us go back to the time of the Arrow incident to begin our analysis" [italics mine] (p. 70). . . .

There are about 572 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.