"This rich, nuanced and erudite book is a great accomplishment." -- Elena Barabantseva University of Manchester The China Journal "A very important contribution to our understanding of the birth of the modern Chinese nation." -- Jeff Kyong-McClain Journal Of World History "An exemplary piece of scholarship... Tackles broad historiographical questions with a manageable and concrete set of new data." -- Howard Chiang, Princeton University British Jrnl For The History Of Science "Brief but elegantly argued... Mullaney makes brilliant sense of mountains of data." -- Ruth Rogaski, Vanderbilt University Hist Stds In The Natural Sciences