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128 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring 1998© 1998 by University ofHawai'i Press which plays such an important part in our understanding of the political economy of the Qing period. Having worked so closely with the anthology, Dunstan is sensitive to both its richness and its problems, and thus it is a pity that she did not say more about these. What, for instance, was the intention of the compilers in bringing together the collection, and what criteria did they employ in selecting documents for inclusion in their anthology? What particular problems should readers of the anthology be wary of? Many instructors will be able to guide students on these matters, but few would have the intimate knowledge of the anthology that Dunstan has, and thus discussions of diese things would have enhanced the value of a book that will undoubtedly be of great benefit to teachers and students. All students of late imperial China will be grateful to Helen Dunstan for sharing these close readings of important source materials. It is an excellent documentary study that should prove of considerable value both to students of Chinese history and to those interested in comparative political economy. And by pushing forward the notion of economic liberalism it should become the focus for much discussion and debate. Brian Moloughney University of Otago Brian Moloughney's research interests include late imperial history and Chinese historiography . John King Fairbank, Martha Henderson Coolidge, and Richard J. Smith. H. B. Morse: Customs Commissioner and Historian ofChina. Lexington: University ofKentucky Press, 1995. xiii, 314 pp. Hardcover $39.95, isbn 08131 -1934-0. H. B. Morse: Customs Commissioner and Historian ofChina began as a homage by John King Fairbank to his mentor and pioneering historian of Chinese foreign policy, Hosea B. Morse. Following Fairbank's death, the manuscript was completed by his coauthor and former research assistant Martha Henderson Coolidge and historian Richard J. Smith. The resulting product thus reflects both Fairbank's sense of intellectual debt owed to Morse and Smith's conviction that Fairbank dramatically expanded this tradition of mentoring and scholarly innovation. Reviews 129 Hosea B. Morse did not experience the type ofinteresting or significant official career that makes for an exciting biography. Most ofhis years in the Chinese Maritime Customs were spent in a series of small, isolated customs stations or as a junior official serving in Shanghai, London, or Tianjin. He was a careful, conscientious , and perceptive bureaucrat, but he did not advise powerful Chinese officials nor was he a flamboyant personality. His greatest contributions to the Chinese Customs Service came as head ofthe Statistic Department, where from 1904 to 1908 he refined our knowledge ofChina's balance oftrade by incorporating remittances by overseas Chinese. H. B. Morse's career as customs official merits attention primarily as background for understanding his second career as a historian of China and for its picture of the quotidian problems and travails of foreign customs personnel in China. Morse came from a modest New England family, but friendships developed at Boston Latin School and Harvard College provided him with social and professional contacts as well as offering a strong grounding in the classics and mathematics . In his senior year Morse and three other Harvard graduates were recruited into the Chinese Maritime Customs Service by a former Harvard graduate. He joined an international service, headed by the imperious Robert Hart, that employed 120 Westerners (and one thousand Chinese) to run the customs service and advise Chinese officials on foreign policy and modernization. H. B. Morse adds little to our understanding ofthe well-known story of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, but it does offer new perspectives into the personal difficulties confronting Western experts working in China. Health problems loomed large for those working in remote stations in southern regions where heat, humidity, and bad water created constant health hazards. In Taiwan, Morse contracted a debilitating illness, probably schistosomiasis, that left in him constandy fatigued and often in pain: "After a couple ofhours at it I have to go and lie down, unable even to write a letter." Bad health finally forced him to leave the service. Isolation in a series of frontier posts "warped" his...

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