Overview

Struggle for Empire provides the first comprehensive modern biography in English of the late Qing dynasty statesman, strategist, and military commander, Zuo Zongtang (1812-1885). A national hero in China, Zuo’s remarkable story remains understudied in the West. Author Kenneth Swope traces Zuo's unlikely rise from poverty and obscurity in rural Hunan province to become the most powerful Han Chinese official in Manchu China. Zuo embodied a new practical type of Chinese official, grounded in the study of military history and strategic geography, who realized that the secret to China’s survival was to both live up to traditional Confucian norms and expectations while also adapting science and technology from the West. Zuo also pushed for self-strengthening, building China’s first modern naval yard and setting up arsenals, silk factories, and publishing houses across China. Zuo also helped the Qing put down the greatest civil war in human history, the Taiping Rebellion.

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9781682472859

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"Struggle for Empire by Kenneth Swope presents the military career of General Zuo Zongtang, who worked to restore and expand the imperial rule of the Qing dynasty into central Asia during the nineteenth century. Considering Chinese activities in Xinjiang over the past twenty years, one can draw clear lines from Qing military operations to contemporary PRC efforts, often using draconian policies against the Uyghers, to control the restive area. Swope’s scholarship and writing style are excellent and his work should appeal not only to historians or scholars of military affairs, but to a broader audience interested in China's difficult history in its far western regions.""—Eric Setzekorn, George Mason University and author of Arming East Asia: Deterring China in the Early Cold War and The Rise and Fall of an Officer Corps: The Republic of China Military, 1942–1955 “Struggle for Empire fills a longstanding gap in the literature on important late-Qing officials. Zuo was a critically important figure in his time, and Swope returns this major statesman to his proper place in history.” —Peter Lorge, associate professor of Premodern Chinese and Military History at Vanderbilt University and author or editor of nine books, most recently Sun Tzu in the West: The Anglo-American Art of War"

Author Information

Kenneth M. Swope is Professor of History and Senior Fellow of the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Southern Mississippi. He holds a PhD from the University of Michigan and is the author or editor of numerous books and articles on late imperial Chinese and East Asian military history. Swope is a board member of the Chinese Military History Society. He resides in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. 

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