Li Nan 李楠, Handai Xiyu xingzheng zhidu yu tunshu tizhi yanjiu 汉代西域行政制度与屯戍体制研究 (Research on the Military Colonies Settlements and General Frontier Administration of the Western Regions under the Han Dynasty), Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe 中国社会科学出版社, 2020. ISBN 978-7-520-3692-37, 226 pages, 88 RMB.
Reviewed by Arnaud Bertrand (ARscAN – Central Asia, UMR 7041; Catholic Institute of Paris)
Between the end of the second century and the early years of the first century BCE, the Western Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 9 CE) expanded to the west and developed a complex administration to control the conquered territories. Prior to this expansion, the Korean peninsula, the Mongolian steppe, northern Vietnam, and the Western Regions were peripheral to what was “China” at that time. During Emperor Wu’s reign (141–87 BCE), these remote areas were no longer buffer zones with other Asian powers but became partly, or totally, integrated into this growing empire.
Li Nan’s work focuses on the administrative practices deployed by the Western Han, Xin (9–23 CE), and Eastern Han dynasties (25–220) in connection with the occupation of the northwest. More precisely, he focuses on the strategies used by the central administration to rule over the city-states of the Tarim Basin. The study deals with the Western Regions (Xiyu 西域) roughly corresponding to modern Xinjiang. Since the high Neolithic age, this region has constituted a space of constant interactions between the “Chinese” and the “Central Asian” worlds. It stretches from Loulan in the east to Kashgar in the west, though the latter never became an imperial commandery (jun 郡). During the period dealt with in this book, the region was governed by a General Protectorate (Xiyu duhufu 西域都護府), with the aim to control the local economy of the city-states in the form of an imperial colony. The book examines how the Chinese practically managed this Protectorate.

Author Zhao Dongmei, born in 1971, is currently a professor of history at Peking University. A specialist in Song institutional history, she has largely focused her research on the military selection system under the Song dynasty (Wudao panghuang: Zhongguo gudai de wuju yu wuxue 武道彷徨:中国古代的武举与武学, The Irresolute Military Way: Competitive Examinations and Military Teachings in Ancient China, 2000; Wenwu zhijian: Bei Song wuxuanguan yanjiu 文武之间:北宋武选官研究, The Civilian and the Military: A Study of the Military under the Northern Song, 2010). She has also worked in depth on Sima Guang and analysed Wang Anshi’s New Policies in her latest work (Da Song zhi bian 大宋之变1063–1086, The Great Political Change under the Song 1063–1086, 2020).
Shi Zhan (b. 1977) is a professor of political science at the China Foreign Affairs University 外交学院 in Beijing, and director of the Research Center on World Politics at the same university. In 2009, one year after completing his Ph.D. in history at Peking University, Shi joined a group of liberal scholars that called themselves Daguan 大观, which might be translated as “The Big Picture,” or “The Grand Vision;” they ultimately launched a journal that bears the same name (and which is quite difficult to find, at least in North America).

Max Jakob Fölster (guest editor): Thematic Focus: “Between Appropriation and Refutation – On the Significance and Reception of Max Weber in China”, 


