H.B. Morse, Customs Commissioner and Historian of China - Hardcover

Fairbank, John King; Coolidge, Martha Henderson; Smith, Richard J

9780813119342: H.B. Morse, Customs Commissioner and Historian of China

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813119340 ISBN 13: 9780813119342

Publisher: Premier Book Marketing Ltd, 1998

Hosea Ballou Morse (1855-1934) sailed to China in 1874, and for the next thirty-five years he labored loyally in the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs Service, becoming one of its most able commissioners and acquiring a deep knowledge of China's economy and foreign relations. After his retirement in 1909, Morse devoted himself to scholarship. He pioneered in the Western study of China's foreign relations, weaving from the tangled threads of the Ch'ing dynasty's foreign affairs several seminal interpretive histories, most notably his three volume magnum opus, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (1910-18).
Begun as a labor of love by his protege, John King Fairbank, this lively biography based primarily on Morse's vast collection of personal papers sheds light on many crucial events in modern Chinese history, as well as on the multifaceted Western role in late imperial China, and provides new insights into the beginnings of modern China studies in this country. Unfinished when Fairbank died, the project was completed by his colleagues, Martha Henderson Coolidge and Richard J. Smith.

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Synopsis:

A biography of a commissioner in the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs Service and a pioneer in the Western study of China's foreign relations, based on Morse's personal papers. Includes b&w photos, a summary of his customs career, and an obituary. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

About the Author:

John King Fairbank (1907-1991) was Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History at Harvard University.

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