We need to examine and think about some efforts by very able people to summarize some of the issues in this territory. Why are historians writing in this field so lacking in theoretical ambition? Political scientists writing for a policy elite and for the intelligent general reader have different sets of strengths and weaknesses. A famous and contentious historian/social scientists, Andre Gunder Frank, provides another perspective on how to do these things.
Andrew J. Nathan and Robert Ross, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress. New York and London: Norton, 1997.
John K. Fairbank, ed., The Chinese World Order. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.
Warren L. Cohen, East Asia at the Center: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History. New York and London: Norton, 1999.
Michael D. Swaine and Ashley J. Tellis, Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past Present, and Future. Santa Monica: RAND, 2000.
Mark Mancall, China at the Center: 300 Years of Foreign Policy. New York and London: Free Press, 1984.
Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998.
Ross Terrill, The New Chinese Empire and What It Means to the United States. New York: Basic Books, 2003.
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