Military history is an important emerging field in Chinese studies, and Nicola Di Cosmo is one of its leading lights. In 2001 he organized a conference on imperial Chinese military at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and papers from this conference constitute the present volume.
Military historians will applaud Di Cosmo for inveighing against “…the influential perception that Chinese culture was inherently indifferent to the gritty matter of battles and wars and consequently paid little or no heed to military topics” (p. 1). More importantly, they will appreciate his four useful and insightful “meanings” or dimensions of military culture: first, a code of military conduct; second, civilian strategic culture; third, a society's degree of inclination for war and military organization; and fourth, the celebration (literary, civic, or otherwise) of military heroes and exploits. Most of the chapters conscientiously invoke one or more of Di Cosmo's dimensions.
The volume's...