Great Britain And China 1833 1860

Describes the expansion and transformation of China's economic relations with Great Britain, when China was forced to agree to a treaty settlement to open a larger number of ports to foreign trade.

This book questions the universal belief that England's 1840-42 war with China was an 'Opium War'. What really worried London was 'insults to the crown', the claim of a dilapidated and corrupt China to be superior to everyone, threats to British men and women and seizure of British property, plus the wish to expand and free trade everywhere. It was only much later that general Chinese resentment and Evangelical opinion at home - and in America - persuaded everyone that Britain had indeed been wicked and fought for opium.

Reissue in paperback (with new Introduction) of the 1951 classic analysis of the crucial years leading up to the Meiji restoration in which Britain provided Japan with its wealth and power model.

The letters of Richard Cobden (1804-1865)' provides, in four printed volumes, the first critical edition of Cobden's letters, publishing the complete text in as near the original form as possible. The letters are accompanied by full scholarly apparatus, together with an introduction to each volume which re-assesses Cobden's importance in their light. Together, these volumes make available a unique source of the understanding of British liberalism in its European and international contexts, throwing new light on issues such as the repeal of the Corn Laws, British radical movements, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, Anglo-French relations, and the American Civil War. The fourth and final volume, drawing on some forty-six archives worldwide, is dominated by Cobden's search for a permanent political legacy at home and abroad, following the severe check to his health in the autumn of 1859. In January 1860, he succeeded in negotiating the Anglo-French Commercial Treaty, a landmark in Anglo-French relations designed to bind the two nations closer together, and to provide the basis for a Europe united by free trade.

The ‘battle for Beijing’ is universally – and quite wrongly – believed to have been about opium. This book argues that it was about freedom to trade, Britain’s demands for diplomatic equality, and French demands for religious freedom in China. Both countries agreed that their armies, which repeatedly prevailed over Chinese ones that were numerically superior, would stay out of Beijing itself, but were infuriated by China’s imprisonment, torture and death of British, French and Indian negotiators. At the same time, the British and French also helped the empire to battle rebels and to pocket port and harbour dues. They steered carefully between their political and trading demands, and navigated the danger that undue stress would make China’s fragile government and empire fall apart. If it did, there would be no one to make any kind of agreement with; much of East Asia would be in chaos and Russian power would soon expand. Battle for Beijing, 1858–1860 offers fresh insights into the reasons behind the actions and strategies of British authorities, both at home and in China, and the British and French military commanders. It goes against the widely accepted views surrounding the Franco-British conflict, proposing a bold new argument and perspective.

This volume investigates the shape and the development of scholarly and popular opinion about the British Empire over the centuries.