| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 250 words from this article are provided below; about 594 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, 105.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Methods/Theory

Ray Huang. Broadening the Horizons of Chinese History: Discourses, Syntheses, and Comparisons. (An East Gate Book.) Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe. 1999. Pp. viii, 274. Cloth $56.95, paper $22.95.

This is a work by an eminent and venerable Chinese historian, a specialist by training in Ming history, but with a wider knowledge of Chinese and European history than most historians. Ray Huang also bridges many other worlds: those between popular history and specialist knowledge, between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China (PRC), and among British, American, and Chinese Sinology, among others. His many sides and vast learning are much in evidence in this volume, but the collection itself seems to represent a kind of mop-up operation. To be sure, there is a distinct macrohistorical thesis that Huang expounds with flair and persistence, but the collection is made up of essays, lectures, even outlines of lectures mostly written or presented originally in Chinese in the mid-1980s, and some from the early 1990s. The style is definitive, even strident; popular, with relatively few footnotes (although there are also parts of essays that plunge us deep into the arcane business of Ming taxation); chatty, with intimate reminiscences of the late Joseph Needham or of Huang's days in the Nationalist Army on the mainland; and deeply committed to the agenda of reform in the PRC. Perhaps, as the blurb suggests, it may be regarded as a sourcebook and a teacher's guide to Huang's China: A Macro History (1988). . . .

There are about 594 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.