| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Joshua A. Fogel, editor. Sagacious Monks and Bloodthirsty Warriors: Chinese Views of Japan in the Ming-Qing Period. (Signature Books.) Norwalk, CT: Eastbridge. 2002. Pp. vi, 401. Cloth $34.95, paper $24.95.
The book under review is an ambitious, useful, and generally well-written collection of essays on Chinese views of Japan during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties. Editor Joshua A. Fogel is the foremost American scholar in this field. The book consists of an introduction by the editor and eleven chapters by Chinese, American, Canadian, and Japanese scholars. Fogel is to be commended for the book's international scope, and especially for introducing five major Chinese scholars to Western readers. This collection of essays, which stemmed from a 1997 conference, only begins to touch the surface of this important yet underexplored topic. Going beyond diplomatic and economic relations, essays in this book take a fresh approach to Sino-Japanese history by examining issues of cultural and intellectual relationships.	1
Most of the essays attempt to grapple with questions of Chinese perceptions of Japan and the Japanese people from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries. Not surprisingly, the authors point out that throughout those several centuries, the Chinese consistently viewed their neighbor "through a lens colored by an exclusive set of Chinese references" (p. 3). Although views toward the Japanese people alternated between "sagacious monks and bloodthirsty warriors," they were always measured by Chinese standards. As Timothy Brook notes in his essay, the traditional Chinese ignorance of and disinterest in Japan stemmed from deep cultural biases. The Chinese always have been fascinated with Japan, viewing it, on the one hand, as an island of cultural borrowers and, on the other hand, as a potential or actual military aggressor. This dual perspective has continuously colored the relationship.	. . .

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