At the end of the late 19th century, a dramatic shift took place in East Asia, as Japan replaced China as the dominant country in the region. While this shift was the result of a series of developments that took place over decades, a key turning point was the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5, when Japan defeated China in a short, sharp conflict that reflected the changing balance of power in the area. By its end Japanese forces had driven the Chinese from Korea and established themselves as a force to be reckoned with, one that was treated almost as an equal by the Western imperial powers.

That such "a seminal event in world history" has not received its due from Western historians is not surprising given the language barriers confronting scholars seeking to write about the war. For this reason alone Sarah Paine's effort to provide English-language readers with a long-needed history of the war is a commendable one. Yet this very demand contributes to a sense of disappointment with this book. To write it, Paine relies heavily upon the often unreliable coverage of the war in contemporary newspapers, supplemented with published documentary collections and the related secondary literature on the subject. Nowhere in its pages is there any evidence of archival research on her part that would provide a basis for judging the veracity of sometimes contradictory reports she uses, leaving unaddressed the numerous questions raised in her book about the exact course of events and the motivations behind the decisions made in response to them. Nor does it help when she exaggerates the importance of the war by ascribing to it developments that arguably predated (such as Western perceptions of Chinese decline) or postdated (such as Western regard for Japan as a modern power) it.

The result is a work that is a serious letdown. Had Paine undertaken the archival labors necessary to sort through the often confusing reportage of events it would have been a major contribution to our understanding of the war and its place in modern history. As it is, however, she has written a book that is useful as an introduction to the conflict but ultimately serves to demonstrate how much more work needs to be done to properly understand its place in the transformation of the fortunes of China and Japan in the late 19th century. ( )

This international history of the Sino-Japanese War is of value, but somewhat strangely arranged. Of particular virtue is how Paine examines the domestic situation of all the relevant players; China, Japan, Korea, and Russia, and how their preconceptions of the their neighbors impacted on how the war played out. What is not good is how Paine throws the expression "face" around for roughly four-fifths of the book as a major term of analysis, with very little explantion of what is meant. One only gets some alleviation of this situation at the end of the study when an examiniation of the points of cultural stress involved in this conflict are examined, which is admittedly a good capsule outline of the attitudes involved. Until you reach this point you'll either be confused if you haven't studied a lot of East Asian history or, if you're actually a student of the region (or a student of ethnographic studies in general), you'll be somewhat irritated at what seems like a simplistic analysis of social behavior. This further leaves one wondering at who this book is really aimed at, and one suspects that the target audience is military officers and makers of policy, who are more likely to buy into Paine's seeming belief in conflict between immutable national cultures akin to the vision offered by Samuel Huntington. ( )