Synopses & Reviews
The Clash of Empires brings to light the cultural legacy of sovereign thinking that emerged in the course of the violent meetings between the British Empire and the Qing Dynasty (1644 1911). Lydia Liu demonstrates how the collision of imperial will and competing interests, rather than the civilizational attributes of existing nations and cultures, led to the invention of âChina,ââthe East,ââthe West,âand the modern notion of âthe worldâin recent history. Drawing on her archival research and comparative analyses of English and Chinese language texts, as well as their respective translations, she explores how the rhetoric of barbarity and civilization, friend and enemy, and discourses on sovereign rights, injury, and dignity were a central part of British imperial warfare. Exposing the military and philological and almost always translingual nature of the clash of empires, this book provides a startlingly new interpretation of modern imperial history.âLiu offers an innovative analysis of the relationship between language and empire. Drawing on âthe semiotic turn of international relations,âshe demonstrates how discourses on the meaning of âsovereigntyâshaped relations between the British Empire and China throughout the 19th century ...The studyâs ambitious and rewarding interdisciplinary approach breaks new ground and will be embraced by scholars from a variety of fields.â D. P. Gorman, Choice
Review
[An] absorbing and resourceful book...[Liu] presents many points that scholars of the 19th and early 20th centuries will find at once persuasive and still reasonably fresh...The Clash of Empires deserves a place in the library of every scholar of modern China. Choice
Review
The book meticulously explicates the ways in which traces of imperialism of the nineteenth century still define our international worldview. By putting China's cultural/linguistic encounter with the British empire at the center of her examination of the colonial legacy, [Liu] also makes a case for the relevance of postcolonial critique to China studies...By unpacking the psychological and moral entanglements and struggles between the imperialists and their victims, The Clash of Empirestakes us to rethink the power structure that undergirds the norms of international politics in the postcolonial world...In identifying new issues and exploring new methodology, this book is remarkably ambitious and has pointed contemporary scholarship's reflection on the topic to a new direction.
Review
The book meticulously explicates the ways in which traces ofimperialism of the nineteenth century still define our international worldview. Byputting China's cultural/linguistic encounter with the British empire at the centerof her examination of the colonial legacy, [Liu] also makes a case for the relevanceof postcolonial critique to China studies...By unpacking the psychological and moralentanglements and struggles between the imperialists and their victims,The Clash of Empirestakes us to rethink thepower structure that undergirds the norms of international politics in thepostcolonial world...In identifying new issues and exploring new methodology, thisbook is remarkably ambitious and has pointed contemporary scholarship's reflectionon the topic to a new direction.
Review
Liu offers an innovative analysis of the relationship between language and empire. Drawing on 'the semiotic turn of international relations,' she demonstrates how discourses on the meaning of 'sovereignty' shaped relations between the British Empire and China throughout the 19th century...The study's ambitious and rewarding interdisciplinary approach breaks new ground and will be embraced by scholars from a variety of fields. D. P. Gorman
Review
[A] challenging book...[The Clash ofEmpires] demands attention.
Review
[A] challenging book...[The Clash of Empires] demands attention.
Review
Extending the investigations begun in her Translingual Practice, Lydia Liu here scrutinizes the linguistic and semiotic perturbations that accompanied the rise of one empire and the tottering of another. Words here function as gifts, as missiles and as mirrors-- and sometimes as all three at once. In law, grammar, religion, diplomacy, media, and other domains, Lydia Liu uncovers the mutual implication of Asian modernity and a colonial ideal of sovereignty, the better to enable us to imagine a future that might be different. Haun Saussy, author of < i=""> Great Walls of Discourse and Other Adventures in Cultural China <>
Review
Lydia Liu's The Clash of Empires explores the powerful impact of "sovereign thinking" or the "desire of the sovereign" in colonial, semicolonial, and postcolonial situations, focusing on late 19th century China. Her point of departure is Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities. Appreciative of his move to theorize the formation of nationalism in Creole contexts, she points out nonetheless that Anderson does not inquire into why nations that dream to be free dream in terms of the right to state sovereignty. Rather than take this urge as self-evident and not in need of explanation, she turns to the period of Chinese history she knows best to explore the situations in which sovereign thinking gets expressed. The author has an intriguing voice, taking the reader across many analytical landscapes and through wonderfully telling examples of sovereign thinking to show its overwhelming power on nations becoming states. Timothy Brook, author of < i=""> The Confusions of Pleasure <>
Review
An original and brilliant contribution to history, linguistics, international relations, law and post-colonial studies, this book changes our world by changing the way we look at ourselves. It is destined to become a classic. Dorothy Ko, author of < i=""> Cinderella ' s Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding <>
Synopsis
What is lost in translation may be a war, a world, a way of life. A unique look into the nineteenth-century clash of empires from both sides of the earthshaking encounter, this book reveals the connections between international law, modern warfare, and comparative grammar--and their influence on the shaping of the modern world in Eastern and Western terms.
The Clash of Empires brings to light the cultural legacy of sovereign thinking that emerged in the course of the violent meetings between the British Empire and the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Lydia Liu demonstrates how the collision of imperial will and competing interests, rather than the civilizational attributes of existing nations and cultures, led to the invention of "China," "the East," "the West," and the modern notion of "the world" in recent history. Drawing on her archival research and comparative analyses of English--and Chinese--language texts, as well as their respective translations, she explores how the rhetoric of barbarity and civilization, friend and enemy, and discourses on sovereign rights, injury, and dignity were a central part of British imperial warfare. Exposing the military and philological--and almost always translingual--nature of the clash of empires, this book provides a startlingly new interpretation of modern imperial history.
Synopsis
This book brings to light the cultural legacy of sovereign thinking that emerged in the course of the violent meetings between the British Empire and the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Lydia Liu demonstrates how the collision of imperial will and competing interests, rather than the civilizational attributes of existing nations and cultures, led to the invention of "China," "the East," "the West," and the modern notion of "the world" in recent history.
About the Author
Lydia H. Liu is Helmut F. Stern Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.
University of Michigan
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Civilizations Do Not Clash; Empires Do
1. The Semiotic Turn of International Politics
2. The Birth of a Super-Sign
3. Figuring Sovereignty
4. Translating International Law
5. The Secret of Her Greatness
6. The Sovereign Subject of Grammar
Conclusion: The Emperor's Empty Throne
Appendix: Lin Zexu's Communication to Queen Victoria
Notes
Glossary of Chinese Characters
Index