The Dragon and the Foreign Devils: China and the World, 1100 B.C. to the Present by HarryG. GelberReview by: Lucian W. PyeForeign Affairs, Vol. 86, No. 3 (May - Jun., 2007), pp. 157-158Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20032397 .

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Planet India: How the Fastest-Growing Democracy Is TransformingAmerica and the World. BY MIRA KAMDAR.

Scribner, 2007,336 pp. $26.oo. With India now developing almost as

rapidly as China, we can expect a slew of ecstatic studies in which exuberance replaces analytic rigor and even common sense. Kamdar is convinced that India

will shortly be recognized as the model for late-developing countries. The United States cannot serve as a model, she believes, because it absorbs far too much of the earth's resources and produces too much of its pollution. Japan cannot because it has a uniquely homogenous population. Kamdar makes her case for India by quot ing interviews with Indian leaders and citing a bevy of facts and figures. In the latter part of the book, she does introduce some negative factors, particularly when she addresses the problems of India's 6oo,000 villages, its urban slums, and the

millions of Indians who are living on less than $2 a day. Overall, however, the book captures a certain spirit of Indian optimism that sets India apart from other late-developing countries-including

China, where there is greater attention to problems and less counting of chickens before they hatch.

The Dragon and the Foreign Devils: China and the World, ii oo B. C. to the Present. BY HARRY G. GELBER. Walker &

Company, 2007, 512 pp. $34.95. This is a grand historical review of China and its relations with the outside world, starting with the earliest record of Chinese civilization and then covering the rise and fall of the dynasties, the communist revo lution, and the current turn to reform and pragmatism. By treating China's relations

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Recent Books

with the outside world as his constant guiding theme, Gelber is able to give a distinctive twist to the standard history. Anyone who has read that history will find a new dimension in Gelber's telling of the story. He enlivens his account by describing in some detail the competition among the "foreign devils" to get the better of China, driven by strong commercial interests. Gelber's China, meanwhile, is not an isolated and introspective place but rather a society that is responsive to international currents.

Journey to the East. TheJesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724. BY LIAM MATTHEW

BROCKEY. Harvard University Press, 2007, 512 pp. $35.00.

Brockey's title evokes one of the great works of classical Chinese literature, Journey to the West, an account of the travels of a Chinese monk to India in search of Buddhist manuscripts. Brockey's story is that of the Jesuit missionaries who traveled to China to spread Christianity and

Western learning, especially science-and the tensions that emerged when two great civilizations came together. The Jesuits

who arrived were well educated; were in full command of Western knowledge, culture, and literature; and had great organizing skills, which helped them establish Christian communities through out China. The result was great success in converting Chinese (some 200,000 in all) while maintaining good relations with Chinese officialdom. Brockey has little new to say, however, about the "Chinese rites" question: whether Chinese could practice ancestor worship and adhere to Confucianism and at the same time be accepted as true Christians. The Jesuits took a tolerant position, but the late-arriving

mendicant orders insisted that the two were not compatible. When the issue was referred to Rome and the pope ruled against the Jesuits, the Chinese emperor K'ang-hsi decided that the foreign Chris tians were meddling and closed China to

missionaries-which is where Brockey's book ends.

China Watching: Perspectives From Europe, Japan, and the United States. EDITED BY ROBERT ASH, DAVID SHAMBAUGH,

AND SEIICHIRO TAKAGI. Routledge,

2006, 272 pp. $145.00 (paper, $37.95).

This symposium is a significant attempt to report on the current state of China studies by focusing on developments in three countries (a region in the case of

Europe) and in three areas of study: economics, politics, and international security. The field has come a long way from its early roots in Sinology and linguistics. Although all of the authors

make useful contributions, Richard Baum's survey of China watching by Americans is outstanding. Baum charts the generational shifts in the focus of research and identifies the best work in each period. One comes away from this book with the feeling that the best days for China watching may be past-and that in the future, funds for research will be harder to raise.

Africa NICOLAS VAN DE WALLE

Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone. BY LARRY DEVLIN. PublicAffairs, 2007,304 pp. $26.oo.

One of the more notorious CIA agents of

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