Belknap Press
Spies and Scholars: Chinese Secrets and Imperial Russia's Quest for World Power
Key Metrics
- Gregory Afinogenov
- Belknap Press
- Paperback
- 9780674294035
- -
- -
- History > Asia - China
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
A Financial Times Book of the Year
Gold Medal in World History, Independent Publisher Book Awards
Superb...At once a history of science, of empire, and of espionage, the book traces the rise of the Russian empire as a putative rival to Qing dynasty China in the Far East. Afinogenov has chosen a genuinely compelling cast of characters to populate this story of imperial intrigue...A vividly written, entertaining, and skillfully researched history of information in motion.--New Rambler
The history of Sino-Russian relations appears in a much-altered light thanks to Gregory Afinogenov's impressive new book. From the mid-17th century, the tsarist empire outdid all other European powers in gathering political, industrial, and commercial intelligence about China under the Qing dynasty. It is a little-known story, and [he] tells it beautifully.--Tony Barber, Financial Times
Reads like a detective novel...a tour de force that offers new information about the rise of empires and the globalization of the world.--Journal of Jesuit Studies
Beginning in the seventeenth century, Russian officials made a concerted effort to collect information about the Qing dynasty in China. From diplomatic missions in the Forbidden City to remote outposts on the border, Russian spies and scholars collected trade secrets, recipes for porcelain, and gossip about the country and its leaders--but the information was secret, not destined for wide circulation.
Focused at first on the Siberian frontier, tsarist bureaucrats relied on spies, some of whom were Jesuit scholars stationed in China. When their attention shifted to Europe in the nineteenth century, they turned to more public-facing means to generate knowledge, including diplomatic and academic worlds, which would ultimately inform the broader encounter between China and Western empires. Peopled with a colorful cast of characters and based on extensive archival research in Russia and beyond, Spies and Scholars is a dramatic tale of covert machinations that breaks down long-accepted assumptions about the connection between knowledge and imperial power.
Author Bio
Greg Afinogenov is an assistant professor in the Department of History. He received his PhD in Russian history from Harvard University and his BA in history and philosophy from Fordham; at Georgetown, he looks forward to teaching courses on Imperial Russian history and beyond.
His first book, Spies and Scholars: Chinese Secrets and Imperial Russia’s Quest for World Power (Harvard University Press, 2020) looks at the construction of a Russian intelligence network in Qing Dynasty China between 1650 and 1850 and the global ramifications of imperial knowledge-making. More broadly, Afinogenov’s research has included everything from cybernetics in the Soviet Union to pastoral poetry in eighteenth-century New York. In addition to academic publications, his articles and reviews have appeared in venues like n+1, Jacobin, and the London Review of Books.
Source: Georgetown University
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