| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Wang Zhenping. Ambassadors from the Islands of Immortals: China-Japan Relations in the Han-Tang Period. (Asian Interactions and Comparisons.) Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 2005. Pp. xiii, 387. $53.00.

This book aims to study roughly one thousand years of Sino-Japanese relations from the Han through the Tang dynasties. Due to the paucity of sources for the first seven hundred years of this period, it is mainly a study of Chinese foreign relations during the Tang dynasty. Wang Zhenping argues that Chinese ambassadorial investiture was a flexible and multipolar system in which ideology, relative distance, and opportunity all played their roles. For the Sino-Japanese relationship, this resulted in diplomacy characterized by what he calls "mutual self-interest." The author's attempt to get away from the traditional China-centered approach to East Asian diplomacy is refreshing, and it is enhanced by his having brought together a remarkable array of Chinese and Japanese sources. However, while both types of sources are mostly written in classical Chinese, they require very different kinds of background knowledge for sound interpretation. I regret to say that where ancient Japanese history is concerned I do not always find this study to be an impeccably trustworthy guide.

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