China and the Chinese

This book captures a pivotal moment in both Chinese history and Western understanding of China. Written in 1902 when the Manchu Qing dynasty was in its final years, it represents one of the earliest systematic attempts by a leading Western sinologist to introduce Chinese civilization to an American audience. Herbert Allen Giles, a Cambridge professor who spent years as a diplomat in China, delivered these lectures at Columbia University to inaugurate its new Chinese professorship. His aim was practical and ambitious: to persuade English-speaking readers that China warranted serious, sustained study, not as an exotic curiosity but as a civilization of profound depth. The lectures cover Chinese language, history, philosophy, and social customs, presented with the confidence of a man who believed Westerners had much to learn from the East, even as that learning was filtered through the assumptions of Edwardian Britain. For modern readers, the book functions as a historical artifact: a window into how educated Westerners once imagined China, complete with both genuine insight and the blind spots of its era.