What is it about?
The essay provides a fresh understanding of Western imperialism in nineteenth–century China. It argues that the China coast accommodated the imperial interests of several Western countries and that it was possible to serve more than one.
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Why is it important?
The essay provides a fresh look on the nature of empires, away from defining them as colonial and hence territorial and rather understanding them as bundles of strategies based on interests. It supports some of the recent literature on trans-imperial phenomena. It also revises some fundamental assumptions about German imperialism in the period prior to 1871.
Perspectives
I very much enjoyed writing this article, doing research in some really exciting archives. I also think that Gützlaff is a fascinating if rightly controversial personality who deserves more attention than he usually gets. I think that adding the German dimension of his involvement with imperialism is particularly important, as this adds a neglected perspective to the standard biographical writings on the man.
Thoralf Klein
Loughborough University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Biography and the Making of Transnational Imperialism: Karl Gützlaff on the China Coast, 1831–1851, The Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, October 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/03086534.2018.1539726.
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