The title of this book suggests several possibilities. Is this a study of Chinese perceptions and writings about pastoral nomadic peoples? A conventional survey of frontier policies and foreign relations, chronicling wars, treaties, and embassies? Or another examination of steppe and Silk Road influences on the culture of Tang China? In fact, it is something almost entirely different, a systematic investigation of the structures and loci of contact, mostly at the elite level, between Chinese and the mainly pastoral peoples of the adjacent steppe lands: Türks, Uighurs, Khitan, Qay, Tuyuhun, and others. The specific topics covered include patron-client ties, political investiture, diplomatic ritual, marriage alliances, fictive kinship, and frontier markets. Raiding is mentioned, too, but receives relatively little emphasis. In contrast to most other authors who have written about relations between imperial China and its pastoral neighbors, Skaff stresses engagement rather than confrontation. And he presents a powerful and generally...

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