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China and Historical Capitalism: Genealogies of Sinological Knowledge. Edited by Timothy Brook and Gregory Blue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xii, 291. $64.95.

The five thoughtful essays collected here “aim to identify distortions introduced in the understanding of China under the influence of cultural and ideological trends that took Western capitalist relations and patterns of development to be the norm” (p. 5). Two trace how intellectuals concerned with finding the patterns of change familiar from European history failed to see change in China; one describes the origins of European capitalism as an accident that says little about basic differences among civilizations; and two trace long-term Chinese developments to show important economic changes proceeding according to a noncapitalist logic.