The first book of a Yale professor of Chinese history contains a “multitude of problems,” according to a no-holds-barred review published last month.
Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine: The Administrative Revolution of the Eighteenth-Century Qing State appeared last August from Harvard University Press. Its author, Maura Dykstra, is now an assistant professor of history at Yale.
In an extensive review that appeared in the Journal of Chinese History on August 31, George Qiao, an assistant professor of history and Asian languages and civilizations at Amherst College in Massachusetts, wrote that Dykstra’s book “fails to meet basic academic standards” and is “filled with misinformation.”
The book’s problems, according to Qiao, include typos, as well as:
flawed conception, numerous factual blunders, failure to engage existing scholarship, problematic choice of primary sources, and dubious citation practices.
In addition, he wrote, “the book systematically misrepresents the majority of its primary sources to support an untenable thesis.” Another academic said it “might be the most brutal academic book review I’ve ever seen.”
Qiao declined to comment, citing the sensitivity of the matter within the field and his lack of tenure.
Dykstra told us she would publish a response in the same journal, likely in the January issue, and declined to comment further.
In a blog post on the website of the Association for Asian Studies soon after the book’s publication, Dykstra told an interviewer that the project had come out of feedback she had received on a manuscript based on her dissertation. She began working on what became Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine “since people seemed very confused by my assumptions and claims about the evolving character of late imperial administration.”
We reached out to the Harvard University Asia Center – the book is in its monograph series – to ask about the review process the manuscript had undergone before publication, which would typically involve sending it to two experts for feedback. Kristen Wanner, director of the publications program, told us:
We don’t have any comments on Professor Qiao’s review at this time. We are also awaiting the author’s written response to the review.
The American Historical Association has this to say in its “Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct” for scholarship:
Historians should document their findings and be prepared to make available their sources, evidence, and data, including any documentation they develop through interviews. Historians should not misrepresent their sources. They should report their findings as accurately as possible and not omit evidence that runs counter to their own interpretation.
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Who were the reviewers for this book?
I wrote for Yale Near Eastern Researches many years ago for my first book-length publication, and thereafter for others such as Brill. Hence, I do know the length good academic publishers go when requiring serious evaluative reviews. Indeed, I am presently one of the editors for a Brill series and so I am involved in this procedure.
Hence, further questions need to be raised, ones independent of the contents of the author’s manuscript sent for publication. One would be: how well versed in the subject were the referees. Others come to mind.
This issue is worthy of a follow-up.
There is plenty of established scholarship that would draw critiques like those of Prof. Qiao’s. Foucault’s works come to mind (cite sources? mais non) as do others in the vein of critical theory. Any judgement should wait on other reviews and the author’s response.
Well, Foucault is kind of making up his own (orientalist) nonsense, at least in History of Sexuality, so sure. His work definitely should be critiqued and probably should have been sent back for extensive reworking (if that were a thing back in the day).
This immediately reminded me of Esherick’s thrashing of James Hevia’s book, titled “Cherishing Sources from Afar. “
https://archivalia.hypotheses.org/182673
https://networks.h-net.org/group/reviews/20007641/reed-dykstra-uncertainty-empire-routine-administrative-revolution-eighteenth
Here is another review of the same book.
The full review by Prof Qiao is truly worth a read. The reviewer systematically takes apart the arguments in the book, using detailed examples of how the author misrepresented and embellished facts.
Free to read at:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/AD2E74A82073AAEAA5105E946BA17823/S2059163223000191a.pdf/was-there-an-administrative-revolution.pdf
Maura Dykstra recently posted a response available here:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-chinese-history/article/response-to-george-qiaos-review-of-uncertainty-in-the-empire-of-routine-the-administrative-revolution-of-the-eighteenthcentury-qing-state/94C301F9EEE0DF4DBBDCE5A66EC7CAA5
She characterizes the review as so much mean nitpicking. That her book constantly chastises previous scholars for missing an administrative revolution, though she ignores the existing literature entirely, is glossed over with promises to address the wider methodological problems in her paper at another time. For her, it’s her critics who are insulting, though she accuses them of misunderstanding the material in the same tone as she is complaining about. She accuses them of nitpicking, though the entire response is constrained to nitpicks.
https://x.com/B4Btv/status/1738557354340487275?s=20
One of the defenders:
https://x.com/StephBalkwill/status/1738255365589078523?s=20