This is the first published study in English of Russian trade and commercial relations with China from the Treaty of Kiakhta (1727) to the early nineteenth century. It is a study in Russian economic and entrepreneurial history, focusing on Russian state economic policy and activity concerning China. It dwells at length on the state monopolies, but at the same time private trade with China and the Chinese is also fully explored. Originally published 1969. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

This book was originally written as a historical treatise to demonstrate -that the development of economic ties between Russia and China is the logical outcome of a centuries old friendship between these neighboring peoples, a friendship which accords with their fundamental interests and is of general benefit to all mankind.- In the post-Soviet and post-Maoist era, these consensual tendencies are even stronger. The original publication of this translation in 1966, when its central thesis had long been abandoned and refuted by both sides, is still of value and not just as an ironic comment on the theorists and systemizers of history. For this, better examples are already available in every book shop and on the shelves of every library. Rather, the work demonstrates that sharing a common socialist ideology is insufficient to overcome animosities of history and national rivalries. The student of Sino-Soviet relations will find much of interest here. The book still represents a work of considerable scholarship, even though its ostensible raison d'I1/2tre has been abolished. Armed with the knowledge that the protagonists have accepted some of the author's reservations and have reversed their positions on a number of points objectionable to him, the reader will be able to achieve a clear and comprehensive understanding of the subject. Partisanship was never particularly subtle in debates within Marxist or Maoist circles. The virulence of the language in some sections of the book, which have been rendered accurately, with no toning down, provides the reader with an insight into the background of China's continuing intransigence in international policies.

Qing Encounters: Artistic Exchanges between China and the West examines how the contact between China and Europe in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries transformed the arts on both sides of the East-West divide. The essays in the volume reveal the extent to which images, artifacts, and natural specimens were traded and copied, and how these materials inflected both cultures’ visions of novelty and pleasure, battle and power, and ways of seeing and representing. Artists and craftspeople on both continents borrowed and adapted forms, techniques, and modes of representation, producing deliberate, meaningful, and complex new creations. By considering this reciprocity from both Eastern and Western perspectives, Qing Encounters offers a new and nuanced understanding of this critical period.

"Bibliography of publications based upon collections made with the support of the Swedish China research committee, by Fr. E. Åhlander": Bulletin no. 1, p. 185-191.