Strangers at the Gate

Now available again, this pioneering work examines one of the most controversial periods in Chinese history: the relationship between the Chinese civil and military authorities and the British trading community in Guangdong province on the eve of the Taiping Rebellion, one the most calamitous events in Chinese history. Wakeman shows how prevailing rural discontent, urban riots, secret society activity, and the imbalance of class and clan affected the mechanisms of regional power and gentry control, demonstrating the progression of rebellion and the historical inevitability of revolution.

Frederic Wakeman Jr. is Haas Professor of Asian Studies and Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of numerous books on China including The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China (California, 1985), and Policing Shanghai, 1927-1937 (California, 1994, also available in paperback).