Book Review: Far East: Chinese Political Traditions
| Author | J. L. Cranmer-Byng |
| Published date | 01 September 1966 |
| Date | 01 September 1966 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070206602100332 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BooK
REvIEws
395
the
strategies
and
tactics
that
Mao
pursued
to
victory.
This
study should
long
remain
one
of
the
most
important
sources
available
to
layman
and
scholar
alike.
In
Communist
China,
the
Early
Years,
1949-55,
the reader
gets
as
close
to
the
events
of
that
period
as
is
possible.
These
reports
were
written
by
Doak
Barnett, from
both
the
mainland
and
Hong Kong
during
those
years.
They
include
a
wide
range
of
subjects
but
concen-
trate
on
the
themes
of
the
Chinese
Commumst
Party's
consolidation
of
political
power,
its
early
achievements in
economic
rehabilitation,
and
its
efforts
in
the
field
of
indoctrination.
Although
essentially
contem-
porary
reports,
their
usefulness
has
not
waned
in
the
decade
or
more
since
they
were
written,
and
their
collection in
a
single
volume
should
be
welcomed
by
students
of
contemporary
China.
University
of
Toronto
WM.
G.
SAYWELL
CHINESE PoLITICAL
TRADITIONS.
By
Franklin
W
Houn.
1965.
(Washing-
ton:
Public Affairs
Press.
iv
130pp.
$3.75)
The
student
of
traditional
Chinese
political
institutions
and
ideas
(pre-1912),
looking
for
satisfactory material
to
study
in
the
English
language,
soon
finds
that
although
a
number
of
monographs
and
articles
exist,
these
are
devoted
to
single
topics
such
as
the
bureaucratic
exam-
ination system or
to
a
single
short
period,
and
that
no
systematic
surveys
of
the
evolution
of
Chinese
political
institutions
are
available
in
the
way
that
they
are
for
the
constitutional
history
of
Britain
or
Europe.
Thus
a
work
which
purports
to explain
Chinese
political
tradi-
tions
will
be seized
on
eagerly
by
those
interested
in Chinese
history
Unfortunately
they
are
likely
to
be
disappointed
by
Professor
Houn's
small
book
which
is
too
short
and
scrappy to
deal
adequately
with
such
a
wide
subject. The
author's
method
is
to
group
loosely
together
a number
of
topics
in
one
chapter,
giving
each topic
a
separate
sub-
heading
and
allotting
to
it
a
few
paragraphs
or
a
few
pages.
In
doing
so
he
raises
more problems
than
he
settles,
and
the
book develops
into
a
compendium
of
topics
related
to
Chinese
political
traditions
which
need
further
study
Another
weakness
of
the
author's
method
is
to
range
widely
over
the
whole
period
of
Chinese
history
citing
at
random
the
Confucian classics,
the
dynastic histories,
the
various
Chinese
authors,
so
that
the
reader
may
suddenly
be
faced
with
a
jump
from
the
reign
of
the
Emperor
Wu-ti
(148-88
B.C.)
to
a
particular
year
(1712)
in
the
reign
of
the
Emperor
K'ang-hsi
within
the
same
page.
This
tends
to
be
rather
disconcerting to
the
Western
reader
who
usually
needs
a
little
more continuity.
Moreover,
I
do
not
feel
that
the
wide
use
the
author
makes
of
brief
quotations
and references
to
various
sources
necessarily
proves
the
points
which
he
is
attempting
to
establish;
his
arguments
are
generally
too
terse
to
carry
conviction
and
are
not
related
to
sufficient
corroborating
evidence
and
supporting analysis.
The
reader
is
forced to
accept
the
author's
selection
of
quotations
(and
often
his
translations
of
them) without
the
benefit of
sufficient
critical
comments.
In
short, the
author
relies
too
heavily
on a
few
selected
quotations
to
prove
his
contentions
and
then
proceeds
to
generalize
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