Inserting China into the history of nineteenth-century colonialism, English Lessons explores the ways that Euroamerican imperial powers humiliated the Qing monarchy and disciplined the Qing polity in the wake of multi-power invasions of China in 1860 and 1900. Focusing on the processes by which Great Britain enacted a pedagogical project that was itself a form of colonization, James L. Hevia demonstrates how British actors instructed the Manchu-Chinese elite on "proper" behavior in a world dominated by multiple imperial powers. Their aim was to "bring China low" and make it a willing participant in British strategic goals in Asia. These lessons not only transformed the Qing dynasty, but ultimately contributed to its destruction. Hevia analyzes British Foreign Office documents, diplomatic memoirs, auction house and museum records, nineteenth-century scholarly analyses of Chinese history and culture, campaign records, and photographs. He shows how Britain refigured its imperial project in China as a cultural endeavor by investigating the circulation of military loot in Europe, the creation of an art history of "things Chinese," the construction of a field of knowledge about China, and the Great Game rivalry between Britain, Russia, and Qing empire in Central Asia. Each of these elements not only influenced the colonial project, but also had a significant impact on creating a national consciousness in China.

《英国的课业:19世纪中国的帝国主义教程》把中国嵌入到l9世纪殖民主义的历史之中，指出帝国主义和殖民主义不仅仅是枪炮、商品和各种侵略行为，它还是一个文化过程，一个需要被征服人民自愿去接受的“霸权工程”。正是为了实现这样的霸权，l9世纪在华帝国主义通过武器的强制和语言的强制这样软硬两个方面，对清政府和人民进行“规训”。教育”他们在个由欧美帝国支配着的世界里，应该如何规范自己的行为。 何伟亚超越“中国中心取向”，从西方列强构建新帝国的垒球性历史进程的视野，探寻在华帝国主义、殖民主义的独特性及其与其他殖民环境的联系。对我国学者和读者来说，《英国的课业:19世纪中国的帝国主义教程》在资料、理论、方法和视野等方面，都会有一定的启示。 作者何伟亚原为美国北卡罗来纳大学(教堂坡)国际和亚洲课程主任，现任芝加哥大学国际研究中心主任，他的上一部著作《怀柔远人：马嘎尔尼使华的中英礼仪冲突》(英文版)获美国亚洲研究协会颁发的列文森奖。

The Imperial Security State explores an important but under-explored dimension of British imperialism – its information system and the close links between military knowledge and the maintenance of empire. James Hevia's innovative study focuses on route books and military reports produced by the British Indian Army military intelligence between 1880 and 1940. He shows that together these formed a renewable and authoritative archive that was used to train intelligence officers, to inform civilian policy makers and to provide vital information to commanders as they approached the battlefield. The strategic, geographical, political and ethnographical knowledge that was gathered not only framed imperial strategies towards colonised areas to the east but also produced the very object of intervention: Asia itself. Finally, the book addresses the long-term impact of the security regime, revealing how elements of British colonial knowledge have continued to influence contemporary tactics of counterinsurgency in twenty-first-century Iraq and Afghanistan. - Innovative study of British military intelligence before World War One - Sheds new light on the close links between empire-building and intelligence - Reveals the long-term origins of contemporary counterinsurgency tactics "This book is a groundbreaking study of the rise of the British imperial security regime in the 19th century. James L. Hevia’s mastery of rare military archives demystifies the trope of the Great Game and provides an extraordinarily detailed analysis of how the geopolitical boundaries of Asia were produced through a proliferation of route books, maps and statistics, and other apparati of imperial intelligence networks. His scrutiny of the imperial past makes the contemporary security-obsessed American empire supremely legible." Lydia H. Liu, author of The Clash of Empires "Clearly written, well researched, and persuasively argued, Hevia's latest book will engage a range of readers. Scholars of diplomatic history will find especially valuable Hevia's insights into the growth and development of military intelligence as the other major component of the developing European security regimes in Europe and in Asia. Historians of Asia will also gain much from his research, linking as it does south, central, and eastern Asia into the British imperial network of intelligence gathering and control." Michael H. Fisher, H-Diplo "… an elegant, thoughtful and often provocative analysis of how security imperatives dictated the collection, analysis, and dissemination of military information … The Imperial Security State makes a persuasive and passionate argument for the centrality of military intelligence in not only developing strategies to intervene in Asia but more significantly in defining what Asia actually meant then and now. It is a very compelling account, lucidly presented, solidly researched and theoretically sophisticated." Douglas M. Peers, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History "Recommended." Choice

In the late eighteenth century two expansive Eurasian empires met formally for the first time--the Manchu or Qing dynasty of China and the maritime empire of Great Britain. The occasion was the mission of Lord Macartney, sent by the British crown and sponsored by the East India Company, to the court of the Qianlong emperor. "Cherishing Men from Afar" looks at the initial confrontation between these two empires from a historical perspective informed by the insights of contemporary postcolonial criticism and cultural studies. The history of this encounter, like that of most colonial and imperial encounters, has traditionally been told from the Europeans' point of view. In this book, James L. Hevia consults Chinese sources--many previously untranslated--for a broader sense of what Qing court officials understood; and considers these documents in light of a sophisticated anthropological understanding of Qing ritual processes and expectations. He also reexamines the more familiar British accounts in the context of recent critiques of orientalism and work on the development of the bourgeois subject. Hevia's reading of these sources reveals the logics of two discrete imperial formations, not so much impaired by the cultural misunderstandings that have historically been attributed to their meeting, but animated by differing ideas about constructing relations of sovereignty and power. His examination of Chinese and English-language scholarly treatments of this event, both historical and contemporary, sheds new light on the place of the Macartney mission in the dynamics of colonial and imperial encounters.

《怀柔远人》的主题是清代礼宾与1793年马嘎尔尼英国使团，书中分别考察了清朝与英国对遣使事件的叙述，以便强调双方不同的实际操作模式与观念框架。在批判性地评介了其他有关清代外交关系的观点之后，第2章提供了一个对清帝国及其统治状况的全景式的考察，第5章也谈到这个问题，并特别关注宾礼。第3章讨论18世纪大英帝国国内文化背景，展示在知识贵族中普遍流行的“外交、贸易及对中国的了解”。第4章重新检讨马嘎尔尼勋爵对觐见过程前前后后的叙述。第6章和第7章透过清朝的礼仪和统治观念来审视清朝有关这次觐见的记载。第8章把双方的叙述列在一起，合而观之。第9章，在对这次清英相遇做出一些总结之后，回顾了中西关系史中对马嘎尔尼使团的研讨。