This is the first published study in English of Russian trade and commercial relations with China from the Treaty of Kiakhta (1727) to the early nineteenth century. It is a study in Russian economic and entrepreneurial history, focusing on Russian state economic policy and activity concerning China. It dwells at length on the state monopolies, but at the same time private trade with China and the Chinese is also fully explored. Originally published 1969. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
The MissionaryÕs Curse tells the story of a Chinese village that has been Catholic since the seventeenth century, drawing direct connections between its history, the globalizing church, and the nation. Harrison recounts the popular folk tales of merchants and peasants who once adopted Catholic rituals and teachings for their own purposes, only to find themselves in conflict with the orthodoxy of Franciscan missionaries arriving from Italy. The villageÕs long religious history, combined with the similarities between Chinese folk religion and Italian Catholicism, forces us to rethink the extreme violence committed in the area during the Boxer Uprising. The author also follows nineteenth century Chinese priests who campaigned against missionary control, up through the founding of the official church by the Communist Party in the 1950s. HarrisonÕs in-depth study provides a rare insight into villager experiences during the Socialist Education Movement and Cultural Revolution, as well as the growth of Christianity in China in recent years. She makes the compelling argument that Catholic practice in the village, rather than adopting Chinese forms in a gradual process of acculturation, has in fact become increasingly similar to those of Catholics in other parts of the world.
"In The Conquest of a Continent, the historian W. Bruce Lincoln details Siberia's role in Russian history, one remarkably similar to that of the frontier in the development of the United States.... It is a big, panoramic book, in keeping with the immensity of its subject."--Chicago Tribune"Lincoln is a compelling writer whose chapters are colorful snapshots of Siberia's past and present.... The Conquest of a Continent is a vivid narrative that will inform and entertain the broader reading public."--American Historical Review"This story includes Genghis Khan, who sent the Mongols warring into Russia; Ivan the Terrible, who conquered Siberia for Russia; Peter the Great, who supported scientific expeditions and mining enterprises; and Mikhail Gorbachev, whose glasnost policy prompted a new sense of 'Siberian' nationalism. It is also the story of millions of souls who themselves were conquered by Siberia.... Vast riches and great misery, often intertwined, mark this region."--The Wall Street JournalStretching from the Urals to the Arctic Ocean to China, Siberia is so vast that the continental United States and Western Europe could be fitted into its borders, with land to spare. Yet, in only six decades, Russian trappers, cossacks, and adventurers crossed this huge territory, beginning in the 1580s a process of conquest that continues to this day. As rich in resources as it was large in size, Siberia brought the Russians a sixth of the world's gold and silver, a fifth of its platinum, a third of its iron, and a quarter of its timber. The conquest of Siberia allowed Russia to build the modern world's largest empire, and Siberia's vast natural wealth continues to play a vital part in determining Russia's place in international affairs.Bleak yet romantic, Siberia's history comes to life in W. Bruce Lincoln's epic telling. The Conquest of a Continent, first published in 1993, stands as the most comprehensive and vivid account of the Russians in Siberia, from their first victories over the Mongol Khans to the environmental degradation of the twentieth century. Dynasties of incomparable wealth, such as the Stroganovs, figure into the story, as do explorers, natives, gold seekers, and the thousands of men and women sentenced to penal servitude or forced labor in Russia's great wilderness prisonhouse.
This book offers the first long-term analysis of the protracted struggle between Britain, France, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden for economic power and political influence in the northern part of the Eurasian continent between 1660 and 1860. This book shows how their commercial, diplomatic, and military entanglements determined the course of Baltic trade from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century, provoking, among other things, the decline of the Dutch Republic and the partitions of Poland-Lithuania. The author conceptualizes the Baltic Sea as one of North Eurasia’s western border basins, alongside the White, Black, and Caspian Seas, and employs novel statistical series of Baltic trade as a proxy for the long-term development of North Eurasian trade in world history. Based on extensive quantitative evidence and sources for the history of international relations, this book outlines how North Eurasian trade became an object of growing tensions between various larger and smaller powers with a stake in North Eurasia’s riches. The book addresses the long-term impact of mercantilist policies, territorial greed, and military conflicts in North Eurasia’s border basins, and accentuates the significance of developments in the preindustrial transport and commercial infrastructure of the North Eurasian landmass. Employing the concept of North Eurasia and its different borderlands and border basins, this book overcomes previous limitations in the historiography of globalization and sheds light on a large, continental landmass, which researchers tend to leave aside for the benefit of a predominant maritime perspective in historical studies of globalization. North Eurasian Trade in World History, 1660–1860 will be invaluable reading for students and scholars interested in world history, East European history, and the history of international relations and trade.
This edited volume presents new research on Russian-Asian connections by historians, art historians, literary scholars, and linguists. Of particular interest are imagined communities, social networks, and the legacy of colonialism in this important arena of global exchanges within the imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet eras. Individual chapters investigate how Russians imagined Asia and its inhabitants, how these different populations interacted across political and cultural divides, and how people in Siberia, China, and other parts of Asia reacted to Russian imperialism, both in its formal and informal manifestations. A key strength of this volume is its interdisciplinary approach to the topic, challenging readers to synthesize multiple analytical lenses to better understand the multivalent connections binding Russia and Asia together.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the imperial powers—principally Britain, the United States, Russia, France, Germany and Japan—signed treaties with China to secure trading, residence and other rights in cities on the coast, along important rivers, and in remote places further inland. The largest of them—the great treaty ports of Shanghai and Tientsin—became modern cities of international importance, centres of cultural exchange and safe havens for Chinese who sought to subvert the Qing government. They are also lasting symbols of the uninvited and often violent incursions by foreign powers during China’s century of weakness. The extraterritorial privileges that underpinned the treaty ports were abolished in 1943—a time when much of the treaty port world was under Japanese occupation. China’s Foreign Places provides a historical account of the hundred or more major foreign settlements that appeared in China during the period 1840 to 1943. Most of the entries are about treaty ports, large and small, but the book also includes colonies, leased territories, resorts and illicit centres of trade. Information has been drawn from a wide range of sources and entries are arranged alphabetically with extensive illustrations and maps. China’s Foreign Places is both a unique work of reference, essential for scholars of this period and travellers to modern China. It is also a fascinating account of the people, institutions and businesses that inhabited China’s treaty port world.
This collection offers fresh perspectives on Sino-Western cultural relations, with particular regard to the experience of Christianity in China. The contributors include authorities from China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), Europe (including Russia and Eastern Europe), and North America.
In this study, Emily Byrne Curtis explores as her subject lenses, spectacles, aventurine glass, and windows found in China from the sixteenth century. She traces their technological development back to the glassworks in Murano, Venice, and explores their significance in terms of Venice's commerce with China. Because glassware also figured among the gifts which three papal legates from the Vatican presented to the Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors, the author examines many documents from the archives in Rome and the Vatican; the study therefore touches, to an extent, on the history of the Catholic Church in China. Curtis also discusses in the volume some contemporary Chinese references and verses to European glassware, and in the case of enamel materials, she discloses the pronounced effect their use had upon the decor of Chinese porcelains.
