Book Review
The Last Emperors:
A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions
The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions. By Evelyn S. Rawski (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1998) 481 pp. $45.00
Before the 1980s, studies of China from the seventeenth through the early twentieth century usually relied on a few types of published archival records, law codes, local histories, or literary sources. Though much of this work was excellent, it was limited in its ability to handle the events and institutions of the pre-nineteenth century period adequately, and certain topics simply lay behind the historian's reach. The opening of the central archives of the last imperial dynasty, the Qing (1644-1912), has revolutionized research about late imperial Chinese society, politics, and economy. Rawski's long-awaited new book about [End Page 154] the culture of the Qing court is a valuable contribution to this "new wave." It deserves the wide attention, not only of China scholars, but also of scholars who study comparative empire, especially those with an interest in ritual.
Rawski challenges the dominant school of interpretation concerning the significance of the Qing period. Though one of the most successful regimes ever during China's roughly 2,100-year imperial history, the Qing was not, strictly speaking, a "Chinese" dynasty at all, but an alien dynasty founded by an upstart group, the Manchus, who were vastly outnumbered by the Han Chinese. Explaining the paradoxical success of Manchu rule has long been a major concern of historians. The usual approach has been to treat the Qing much as any other Chinese dynasty and to downplay the ethnic origins of the dynasty's founders. Implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) nationalistic, this narrative--embraced by Chinese and Western scholars alike--emphasizes the assimilation (or "sinicization") of the Manchus as the key to explaining how they were able to maintain their preeminence for so long.
Rawski suggests a radically new conceptualization of the Qing as a "pluralistic, multiethnic" empire (2). Rejecting sinicization as the "main historical trend" in the Qing (7), she asserts that it was precisely because they were not Chinese that the Manchus were free to pursue more flexible policies in building their empire, which included China proper, Manchuria, Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang), and Tibet. In other words, Rawski prefers to explain Qing success not by how much like the Chinese the Manchus became but by how different from the Chinese they remained--though it gradually becomes clear she is intimating a Manchu-Han synthesis. She articulates Manchu difference primarily by showing the diverse range of imperial institutions and practices.
The work is divided into three parts. Part I, "The Material Culture of the Qing Court," consists of one chapter that covers a range of topics, mainly subsumed under two broad rubrics--"Imperial Capitals" and "Cultural Policies." Even if it does not all fall easily into the category of material culture, it provides much useful information (for example, about architecture, language, and food), along with a discussion of the extraordinary images of emperors depicted in various cultural guises. Her argument that these portrayals presage the "multicultural policies" of the later eighteenth century raises questions (54), however, about the application of the term "multicultural"--with its celebration of equality in diversity--to the Qing empire (200), in which some people were far more equal than others.
Part II, "The Social Organization of the Qing Court," contains four chapters treating the larger imperial household. These chapters are also a veritable trove of data, gleaned from original research (some of it in Manchu-language sources) and recent Chinese scholarship. The chapters about imperial women and servants are particularly illuminating; in studying the latter group, Rawski calls upon Scott's idea of the "silent [End Page 155] struggle" between subordinates and masters as a way of evaluating the relationship between the emperor and his servitors, including eunuchs and bondservants. 1
Perhaps most compelling are the three chapters of Part III, "Qing Court Rituals," in which Rawski provides a detailed discussion of imperial ritual (court, religious, and private). This section can profitably be read separately from the rest of the book. The richness of the court's spiritual world is well demonstrated in discussions of state sacrifices, shamanic practices, the patronage of Tibetan Buddhism, and the conduct of imperial births, marriages, and deaths.
Rawski does an admirable job in detailing Manchu culture and imperial ritual; the book's principal value may lie therein. Some questions remain, however, as to how effectively she makes the connection with the issue of Manchu identity. Rawski's decision to leave discussion of "what this identity was and how it was created" for the penultimate chapter leaves readers little means of processing the wealth of information that she serves up in chapters 1-6 (35-36). The failure of that discussion fully to materialize in Chapter 7 comes as a disappointment. One would like to learn more about how Rawski understands the operation of identity historically; it might have been helpful in showing how "Qing rulers . . . never shed their Manchu identity" (7). Nevertheless, in its exploration of poorly charted territory, its investigation of many important aspects of Qing hybridity, and in its integration of Manchu-language sources (if marred somewhat by numerous incorrect romanizations), The Last Emperors points the way forward to a refreshingly different perspective on imperial China's last golden age.
Mark C. Elliott
University of California, Santa Barbara
Note
1. James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, 1990).
