An unusual volume in Asian studies with a forty-year research history, this book looks at three interrelated topics. The first is Carol T. Reynolds'. Conducted in the 1970s by a scholar fluent in Classical Chinese and with full access to Japanese archives, it is the first report in any language of the Chinese encounter with Japan in the Meiji era (1854-98). The second and third topics are based in contemporary Chinese research, and belong to Douglas R. Reynolds. The second topic is an investigation of how and why these Chinese observers of Japan reported very directly what they saw and heard--China's first encounter with modernity--without any attempt to portray Chinese people, culture, or technology as superior. The third topic is how and why these carefully-researched and well-written reports by respected Chinese individuals, from diplomats to poets to geographers to a military spy, were so completely ignored and suppressed by the Chinese government. This development left China ignorant of both Japan and the West in ways that would quickly prove catastrophic. Reynolds sees the answer in the culture wars and qingyi (moralistic criticism of public policy) raging in the centers of Chinese authority in the era, which made any documents that might seem threatening or disrespectful a liability the authorities couldn't afford. Annotation 2014 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
