BOOK REVIEWS
229
This book, then, places a major part of Freedman's material in the context of his career. It reviews one aspect of its contribution and points up the significance of Freedman as a promoter of future research. Many have been influenced by both his ideas and his standards of excellence (this writer included), and as the editor comments in his introduction; Freedman's own students together with those from American, European and Chinese universities "produced during the 1960's studies that in number and scope exceeded the sum total of the anthropological work done in China proper before 1949. Nearly all of this research was inspired by Freedman's work".
Hong Kong,
June, 1980.
MARJORIE TOPLEY
THE CHINA STATION; WAR AND DIPLOMACY, 1830-1860, Gerald S. Graham. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978. pp. XX, 444, appendixes, bibliography, index, maps.
It has been over ten years since Professor Graham published his most useful study of the British navy in the Indian Ocean (Great Britain in the Indian Ocean 1810-1850, Clarendon, 1967) and established himself as a leading authority on naval history. He had been for many years the Rhodes Professor of Imperial History in the University of London.* The book under review is Professor Graham's long awaited study of the British navy in China during the most crucial period of the development of China's contacts with the western world in the nineteenth century. And because the Royal Navy played the major official role in "opening China" the book covers the full sweep of British policymaking and its implementation on the China coast during a period that saw the change from mercantilist principles to "free trade" - the ending of the British East India Company's "monopoly" of the Canton trade and its replacement by private trading houses, loosely shepherded by a new British official, denominated Superintendent of Trade, who was given consular powers.
* Where the Hon. Editor studied British Colonial History and a Special Course on the Development of Dominion Status under his guidance.
BOOK REVIEWS
229
This book, then, places a major part of Freedman's material in the context of his career. It reviews one aspect of its contribution and points up the significance of Freedman as a promoter of future research. Many have been influenced by both his ideas and his standards of excellence (this writer included), and as the editor comments in his introduction; Freedman's own students together with those from American, European and Chinese universities "produced during the 1960's studies that in number and scope exceeded the sum total of the anthropological work done in China proper before 1949. Nearly all of this research was inspired by Freedman's work".
Hong Kong,
June, 1980.
MARJORIE TOPLEY
THE CHINA STATION; WAR AND DIPLOMACY, 1830-1860, Gerald S. Graham. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978. pp. XX, 444, appendixes, bibliography, index, maps.
It has been over ten years since Professor Graham published his most useful study of the British navy in the Indian Ocean (Great Britain in the Indian Ocean 1810-1850, Clarendon, 1967) and esta- blished himself as a leading authority on naval history. He had been for many years the Rhodes Professor of Imperial History in the University of London.* The book under review is Professor Graham's long awaited study of the British navy in China during the most crucial period of the development of China's contacts with the western world in the nineteenth century. And because the Royal Navy played the major official role in "opening China" the book covers the full sweep of British policymaking and its implementation on the China coast during a period that saw the change from mercantilist principles to "free trade" - the ending of the British East India Company's "monopoly" of the Canton trade and its replacement by private trading houses, loosely shepherded by a new British official, denominated Superintendent of Trade, who was given consular powers.
* Where the Hon. Editor studied British Colonial History and a Special Course on the Development of Dominion Status under his guidance.
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