The Immobile Empire by Peyrefitte, Alain -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Contents Acknowledgments A Note on Spelling Introduction Prologue: The Witness to Three Stages I: The Journey to China

1: Departure 2: “The Lords of Human Kind” 3: When China Was the Rage in Europe 4: Protected by the British Fleet 5: A Whiff of China

II: Another Planet

6: Macao 7: Skirting Canton 8: Strange Beings 9: Rounding Up Pilots 10: “The Renown of the English Name” 11: Delivery of the Tribute 12. “ ’Tis New to Thee” 13: Gifts or Tribute? 14: The Journey Upriver 15: A Lesson in the Kowtow 16: Residing in a Temple 17: A City of Wood 18: Gathering Clouds 19: Passing Through Peking 20: The Garden of Perfect Brightness 21: Meeting the Missionaries 22: The Palace of Discovery 23: A Distraught Scholar 24: The Science of Government 25: A Gilded Prison 26: Europeans Turned Chinese 27: A Sovereign Under the Influence 28: The Emperor’s Vermilion Brush 29: Jehol Is Not the Place to Do Business

III: In the Shadow of the Emperor

30: Toward the Great Wall 31: In the Tartar Lands 32: The Crisis of Ritual 33: Victory 34: To Each His Own Truth 35: The Aftershock 36: The Morning of the Big Day 37: At the Emperor’s Feet 38: The Paradise of Ten Thousand Trees 39: The Emperor of the Tartars 40: The Party Continues 41: Court Secrets 42: The Atmosphere Darkens 43: Back in Peking 44: Shipwreck 45: A Scroll of Paper Enthroned 46: A Suzerain’s Letter to His Vassal 47: A Message in a Bottle 48: “We Quitted … Like Vagrants”

IV: The Real Mission Begins

49: Responding to a Delay 50: A Learned Grand Councillor 51: Celestial Correspondence 52: Works and Days 53: Sabotage the Barbarian Vessels 54: An Emperor “Upon His Guard Against the Slightest Appearance of Innovation” 55: An Unrivaled Postal System 56: “A Couple of English Frigates Could Reduce Their Coasts to Famine” 57: Qianlong’s Wrath 58: A Rooster Sacrificed 59: China’s Paradise: Suzhou 60: Brides for Sale 61: Glimmers in the Gloom 62: “Mollifying Them While Conceding Them Nothing”

V: New Developments, Fresh Hopes

63: The Patriarch’s Testament 64: On to the Deep South 65: Keeping Hope Alive 66: A Passage over Land 67: “A Stroke of Luck for Our Country” 68: Corporal Punishment 69: Pleasures and Frustrations of Tourism 70: The Match of Progress 71: Descent Toward Canton 72: Where the Barbarian Devils Were Hated 73: Canton 74: Encounters 75: Extern Brothers and Felonious Merchants 76: Rearguard Actions 77: Tomorrow, China 78: More Prosperous Chinese 79: A Surprising Request for a Military Alliance 80: Oceans at War

VI: After Macartney or A Spiral of Misfortune

81: The End of Europe’s China Fad 82: A Dutch Embassy Humiliated 83: Golovkin: An Embassy Aborted 84: Amherst’s Embassy Rejected 85: Amherst at Saint Helena 86: In Exchange for Tea: Opium 87: Military Action 88: Implosion

Conclusion: The Planetarium and the Cloisonné Biographical Notes on Major Personalities Money and Currency Notes and References Bibliography Index About the Author Illustrations Other Books by This Author

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