Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes

Just when we thought no one could offer any new approach to the subject of the Sino-Western encounter during the early modern period, this book pulls us back in. Li Chen sets a new standard for any future study on this topic. -- Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, New York University
Li Chen makes a gift of his expertise in legal history to readers of every level. He not only reinterprets monumental historical episodes in the relations between China and Europe but also builds on this platform a cultural history of European perceptions of punishment, justice, and state prerogative in China. Anybody considering legal history an arcane or marginal element of late Qing history and its international relations will have to reconsider. -- Pamela Kyle Crossley, Dartmouth College
Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes is a landmark contribution to the emerging field of Chinese law and cultural studies. Li Chen's sophisticated analyses and wide-ranging archive illuminate the complex and fascinating encounter between Chinese and European legal traditions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. -- Teemu Ruskola, Emory University School of Law
The discussion of the conceptual differences between Chinese and Western legal orders, public and private, codified and non-codified law is so fascinating and fundamental that it stands as one of the signal contributions of the volume. . . . Sets a very high bar for new studies, and will be a standard for many years to come. * American Historical Review *
Extensively researched and well-written.... The aspiration of the author to restore the centrality of legal matters to Sino-Western interactions is clearly achieved. * H-Empire *
Engages different discursive levels and reveals the evolution and diffusion of knowledge of the Chinese law, from rational to sentimental perspectives. * Frontiers of History in China *
Chen's Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes, not only provides a much needed and significant contribution, but could be regarded as quite the masterpiece, outlining the importance of legal discourses to Sino-Western encounters from the eighteenth century onwards. * Chinese Historical Review *
Li Chen has delivered a carefully crafted and highly articulate study that will soon be required reading for students of comparative law, imperialism, and Sino-western relations in general. * Journal of Chinese History *
A confident exemplar of a now-flourishing field. * English Historical Review *
Enriches discourses on legal, intellectual, and political dimensions of modern Sino-Western relations. * Choice *
In this nuanced and convincing study, Li Chen not only probes why and how oversimplified, reductive culturalist interpretations of Sino-Western legal collisions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries became dominant, but also pushes past the discourses of Euro-Americentric hegemonic creep typically found in revisionist scholarship. * Journal of East Asian Studies *
This is a critical book for understanding a mutually influential relationship, as both Chinese and Western empires struggled to create their own legal identities and forge stable international practices. . . . With this book, Li Chen has equipped historians with an essential vision of the origins of longstanding presumptions about Chinese law. * Frontier of Literary Studies in China *