Civilisation and Empire

Suzuki succeeds magnificently at three levels with this book. It is, first, a major work of scholarship, using Japanese, Chinese and English language sources to reassess China and Japan's interaction with the West in the Nineteenth Century. Secondly, it offers the most nuanced analysis of Nineteenth Century international society to appear to date. Thirdly, it is an important development of the 'English School' argument that the international society concept provides an alternative (and more sophisticated) theoretical starting point for the study of international relations than the currently dominant Realist perspectives.