MCLC: Challenge of Linear Time (1)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Magnus Fiskesjo <magnus.fiskesjo at cornell.edu>
Subject: Challenge of Linear Time (1)
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This book seems very interesting and useful in many ways.

The book blurb has a perplexing/interesting turn of phrase: "In the face
of imperialism and the perceived threat of being split up, the Meiji and
late Qing governments radically reoriented policies in order to become
wealthy and powerful in the global arena."

"In the face of imperialism"??

Sure, Japan's imperialism came later, one could say ... -- but the Qing,
as everyone knows, was one of the greatest imperialistic conquering
empires ever to ravage the face of the earth, for several centuries. So, I
am curious why this fact is sidelined in this sentence, which makes it
sound as if only those others were imperialistic, not the Qing. Is the
failure to insert "European" in the sentence above it related to some kind
of tacit acceptance of Qing-Chinese imperialism as somehow not
imperialist? or somehow different from other imperialisms? -- or is only a
mistake, and nothing else?

Curiously,
Magnus Fiskesjö