War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (review)

This ambitious and interesting book establishes a model of competing logics of domination and balance to compare the way in which state formation emerged from warfare in ancient China, from the origins of the Warring States system in 656 b.c.e. to unification under the first Qin emperors, and in early modern Europe from the 1495 "onset of the early modern European system" to the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 (112). The author finds that initially similar processes in ancient China and early modern Europe managed to produce opposite outcomes. In both times and places, she finds comparable "citizenship rights," namely state–society bargains of material welfare, legal protection, and freedom of expression. The key difference lay in the more effective "self-strengthening" of the Qin state versus the "self-weakening" legacy of ancient regime France with which Napoleon—Qin rulers' nearest kin in early modern Europe—had to contend, despite his efforts at self-strengthening.

By "self-strengthening," Hui, following Waltz, refers to boosting military power by building national armies, increasing economic capability by rationalizing national taxation, and developing clever strategies by establishing meritocratic administration, all of which Qin effectively accomplished (30).¹ Qin aggression—untrammeled by the requirement to wage war "justly"—along with skillful planning, defused potential balancing mechanisms of rising costs and the need to balance power with competing states, which it played off against one another piecemeal. Early-modern Europe, by contrast, used costly and less reliable mercenary armies to increase military strength, and its states were more vulnerable because, unlike Qin, they relied on alliances. Europe increased economic capabilities by contracting loans and selling public offices, which weakened it. These traits acted to counterbalance attempts to achieve domination. Finally, Europeans were simply less ruthless than the Qin. The argument "highlights the contingency of both historical trajectories." It contradicts both the teleological sinocentric view that the Qin unification was inevitable and the Eurocentric assumption that the balance of power in early modern Europe, with everything that followed, likewise was a foregone conclusion (230).

Hui's political-science model and its application to ancient China and early modern Europe are persuasive within the parameters established. The model is necessarily couched in historical terms, however, and despite detailed historical analysis, it is weakened by less than full historical contextualization. For example, consideration of ancient China requires much more detailed attention to such ideological "checks and balances" as the Mandate of Heaven theory, and consideration of early modern Europe requires attention to the roles played by religion and by burgeoning global capitalism. Several sweeping comparisons also give one pause, such as the comment, "the Hundred Schools of Thought" [in ancient China] "[were] akin to the Enlightenment [in Europe]" (226). Nonetheless, this thought-provoking work will repay close consideration by both political scientists and historians.