Teemu Ruskola. Legal Orientalism

Students of Chinese and Western legal history have long focused most of their attention on either China or the West. Thus there are only a few serious comparative studies on Chinese and Western law. Teemu Ruskola's Legal Orientalism: China, the United States, and Modern Law is a timely and very welcome addition to the field. As Ruskola notes, “this book examines how China, the United States, and law are related to each other—historically, conceptually, culturally, and geopolitically” (p. 3). More important, it aims to tell “the extraordinary and virtually forgotten story” of how “European prejudices about Chinese law developed into an American ideology and practice of empire” (p. 3). Although many previous studies have discussed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Shanghai Mixed Court in the International Concession, Ruskola, drawing mostly on U.S. primary sources, provides readers with a more detailed and lucid account of the legal, racial, imperial, and political dynamics behind U.S. policies toward China.

China · Chinese law · Comparative law · Empire · Ideology · International law · Legal history · Municipal law · Orientalism · Political science · Politics · Chinese history and philosophy · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies