书评： What is special about Taiwan? Why can it tell a story about global history?
台湾有什么特殊性？为什么它能够来讲述一个全球史的故事？
欧阳泰：This is a difficult question to answer because there are so many ways in which Taiwan is a unique and special case. It has so much to tell us about global history. Perhaps to me the most interesting thing is that it is one of the few places in the world where European and Chinese colonization coexisted and perhaps the only place where the Chinese eventually prevailed. In1624, when the Dutch established a colony on the island, there were Chinese people there, but not many. They were fishermen, traders, and, to a small extent, hunters, but there was no significant Chinese agriculture. The Dutch encouraged Chinese farmers to cross over to Taiwan, offering land, subventions, and tax breaks. In effect, they created a Chinese colony under European rule or, as I call it in my book How Taiwan Became Chinese,“Sino-European co-colonization.” Chinese rice paddies and sugar plantations spread rapidly through Taiwan’s western plains, and the Chinese population surged from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands. It’s a fascinating history, and the fall of Dutch Taiwan to the great Zheng Chenggong is equally fascinating.(That’s the subject of another book I wrote: Lost Colony（中文翻译为：决战热兰遮.)
欧阳泰：这是一个很难回答的问题，因为台湾在许多方面都是独一无二的。它可以告诉我们很多关于全球历史的资讯。也许对我来说最有趣的是，它是世界上为数不多的欧洲和中国殖民统治共存的地方之一，也许也是中国人最终占上风的唯一地方。1624年，荷兰人在岛上建立殖民地时，那里有华人，但不多。他们是渔民、商人，还有一小部分是猎人，但中国没有重要的农业。荷兰人鼓励中国农民移居台湾，并提供土地、补贴和税收减免。实际上，他们在欧洲统治下创建了一个中国殖民地，或者正如我在《台湾如何成为中国》一书中所说的那样，“中欧共同殖民”。中国的稻田和甘蔗种植园迅速遍布台湾西部平原，华人人口从数百人激增到数千人，再到数万人。这是一段引人入胜的历史，荷兰台湾沦陷于伟大的郑成功手中也同样引人入胜。（这是我写的另一本书的主题：《决战热兰遮》。）
书评："The Last Embassy" tells the story of the Dutch Mission in1795. Different from the pedantic and rigid image of the Qing Empire that everyone is familiar with, the Qing Empire provided warm hospitality. I would like to ask, during this period, were there many diplomatic exchanges between the Qing Empire and Europe? Do they usually break up on bad terms? Why is the Dutch mission successful?
《最后的使团》讲述的是1795年荷兰使团的故事。与平常大家熟悉的大清帝国迂腐僵化的形象不一样的是，大清帝国热烈款待。请问，这个时期，大清帝国和欧洲之间的外交往来很多吗？通常是不是都是不欢而散？为什么荷兰使团会获得欢迎？
欧阳泰：When people consider the history of Sino-European relations, they almost always focus on the British, who had a bad relationship with the Qing. The infamous Macartney Mission of1792-93 is one reason for this, and the way British people in his entourage wrote about his failure tended to place the blame on the Qing court. I– along with some other historians– believe the blame should fall more on the British, especially considering their rather extreme demands, such as the request forof bases on Chinese soil. At the very least, blame should be apportioned more equally. In any case, subsequently, the British had another diplomatic failure in China(the less famous but even more troubled Amherst Mission) and then, of course, there occurred the First Opium War. The British blamed the acrimony and violence on the Qing and wrote volubly and vehemently about the Qing court’s supposed failings. Unfortunately, modern historians adopted many of their perspectives, which continue to affect our understanding of Sino-Western relations.
But if we look at other diplomatic encounters between Europeans and the Qing, a different picture emerges. Russian, Portuguese, and, especially, Dutch missions are particularly instructive. My book The Last Embassy looks at the last Dutch mission to the Qing court, which took place in1794-95, showing how the two sides interacted. There are many reasons for the relative pleasantness of the Dutch mission vis-à-vis the British, but perhaps the most important is that the Dutch and Qing weren’t competing empires, whereas the British were aggressive and expansive. The Dutch also appear to have understood and accepted Qing protocols more readily than the British.
人们回顾中欧关系的历史，几乎总是把目光集中在与清朝关系不好的英国人身上。1792-93年臭名昭著的马戛尔尼使团就是造成这种情况的原因之一，而他的随从中的英国人在描述他的失败时往往将责任归咎于清廷。我和其他一些历史学家认为，责任应该更多地归咎于英国，特别是考虑到他们相当极端的要求，例如在中国领土上建立基地的要求。至少，责任应该更平等地分配。无论如何，随后英国在中国的外交再次失败（不太出名但麻烦更大的阿默斯特使团），然后，当然，发生了第一次鸦片战争。英国人将这种尖刻和暴力归咎于清朝，并慷慨激昂地批评清廷所谓的失败。不幸的是，现代历史学家采纳了他们的许多观点，这继续影响着我们对中西关系的理解。
但如果我们看看欧洲人和清朝之间的其他外交接触，就会出现不同的情况。俄罗斯、葡萄牙，尤其是荷兰的使团尤其具有启发性。我的书《最后的使团》着眼于1794-95年荷兰最后一次派往清廷的使团，展示了双方的互动方式。荷兰使团相对于英国人来说相对愉快的原因有很多，但也许最重要的是荷兰人和清朝不是相互竞争的帝国，而英国人则具有侵略性和扩张性。荷兰人似乎也比英国人更容易理解和接受清朝的礼节。
书评： Your previous book"The Gunpowder Age" seemed to want to explain why China failed and the West won; but this book seems to be the opposite, and seems to want to explain that the Qing Empire was not so pedantic. When I was studying world history, one of our teachers used"Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" as a textbook for class, because he believed that Guns, Germs, and Steel really explained why Europeans came conquer the world. I don’t know how you explain the fate of China and Europe meeting?
你之前一本书《火药时代》似乎想说明为何中国失败西方胜出；而这本书似乎又相反，似乎想说明其实大清帝国也并不是如此迂腐不堪的。我读世界史的时候，我们一个老师是用《Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies》作为教材来上课的，因为他认为Gun，Germs和Steel确实很好解释了为什么是欧洲人来征服世界。我不知道你是如何解释中国与欧洲相遇的命运？
欧阳泰：I have come to believe that the effectiveness of the state may explain a great deal. In the17thcentury, the Qing built a very effective and well administered state. Qing rulers and their bureaucracies managed the complex conquest and administration of China, Mongolia, etc., with aplomb, developing not just powerful military strucutres, but also administrative ones. In the course of the eighteenth century, they expanded the borders of their empire to a striking extent, becoming the undisputed great power of East and Central Asia. They had no significant enemies at this time: Japan was quiescent; the Russians had been neutralized; the Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese were behaving well. So, naturally, the Qing relaxed their military preparedness: why invest in arms when one is overwhemlingly powerful? Meanwhile, European states were fighting many wars, which stimulated their military technology and readiness.
It was due to this relative lack of military stimulus, I believe, that the Qing began to fall behind the west militarily. I believe that this largely explains the Qing failure in the Opium War.
Why did the Qing have such trouble catching up? First, I think the success of Qing reforms in the mid- and late-nineteenth century has been overlooked. Historians have recently found quite a lot of success in Qing reforms. Still, by the mid-nineteenth century, the Qing state was quite an old state–200 years old or so. I’ve come to believe that old states have greater problems developing new structures than young ones. Even more importantly, they have a much harder time getting rid of expensive and obsolete old structures. The Qing had an accretion of military and other structures from their early years that weren’t so adapted to the modern world. To be sure, they built the Jiangnan Arsenal, the Fuzhou Shipyard, etc., and these were quite effective, but they couldn’t rid themselves of many other structures, which drained their treasury. At the same time, Meiji Japan was able to start from scratch, building new cohesive military and administrative structures. Perhaps today, the USA is a bit of an old state, still powerful but not as effective as its younger rival the PRC. An effective state may be the most important factor in relative success for countries.
欧阳泰：我开始相信国家的有效性可以解释很多事情。17世纪，清朝建立了一个非常有效且管理良好的国家。清朝统治者及其官僚机构沉着应对对中国、蒙古等地的复杂征服和行政管理，不仅发展了强大的军事结构，也发展了行政结构。在十八世纪，他们将帝国的疆域扩及惊人的程度，成为东亚和中亚无可争议的强国。此时他们没有重要的敌人：日本处于静止状态；俄国人已经被消灭了；荷兰人、西班牙人和葡萄牙人表现良好。因此，清朝自然放松了军事准备：既然拥有压倒性的实力，为何还要投资军备？同时，欧洲国家正在进行多次战争，这刺激了他们的军事技术和战备。
我认为，正是由于这种相对缺乏军事刺激，清朝在军事上开始落后于西方。我认为这在很大程度上解释了清朝在鸦片战争中的失败。
为什么清朝追赶上来如此困难？首先，我认为十九世纪中后期清朝改革的成功被忽略了。历史学家最近发现清朝改革取得了相当多的成功。尽管如此，到了19世纪中叶，清朝已经是一个相当古老的国家了——大约有200年的历史。我开始相信，老国家在发展新架构上比年轻国家面临更大的问题。更重要的是，他们很难摆脱昂贵且过时的旧架构。清朝早年增加了军事和其他架构，但这些架构不太适应现代世界。诚然，他们建造了江南造船厂、福州造船厂等，这些架构相当有效，但他们无法摆脱许多其他架构，这些架构耗尽了他们的国库。同时，明治日本能够从头开始，建立全新牢固的军事和行政架构。也许今天的美国有点像一个古老的国家，仍然强大，但不如其年轻的竞争对手中国那么有效。有效的政府可能是各国相对成功的最重要因素。
书评： Shi Jingqian（史景迁） is your teacher and a historian familiar to mainland Chinese readers. His books have been published in full set in mainland China and are very popular. I wonder if you can talk about your teacher（史景迁） and his influence on you.Because in Taiwan, many comments say that your novel-like narrative was influenced by Shi Jingqian.
史景迁是您的老师，也是中国大陆读者所熟悉的历史学家，他的书在中国大陆全套出版，且很受欢迎，不知道你是否可以说说您的这位老师和他对您的影响。因为在台湾，很多评论说您小说般的叙述是受到史景迁的影响。
欧阳泰：Jonathan Spence has been a huge influence on me, not just his writings, which inspired me before I even became his student, but also his tutelage and personal example. He had a way in his writing of bringing a world to life, and you’ll notice that he pays as much attention to description, to building a sense of place, as he does to the narrative. He also involves you directly in the experiences of his subjects, whether they are the pennyless John Hu struggling to understand why he’s been imprisoned in France or the troubled Hong Xiuquan seeking to understand his visions and purpose. Like Spence, I believe that historians should not just research the past, make sense of the past, make arguments, build models, etc., but they should also seek to bring the past alive for readers today. I’ve sought to do so in my own work. Important history can be fun to read. We historians should endeavor to make it so.
欧阳泰：乔纳森‧史宾塞（Jonathan Spence）对我的影响很大，不仅他的著作在我成为他的学生之前给我的启发，还有他的指导和个人榜样。他在写作中用一种方式让世界变得栩栩如生，你会注意到他对描述和建立地方感的关注与他对叙事的关注一样多。他也让你直接参与他的写作对象的经历，无论他们是身无分文的胡约翰，努力理解他为什么在法国被监禁，还是陷入困境的洪秀全，试图理解他的愿景和目的。和史景迁一样，我认为历史学家不应该只研究过去、理解过去、提出论点、建立模型等，而且还应该努力为今天的读者再现过去。我试着在自己的工作中做到这一点。重要的历史读起来很有趣。我们历史学家应该努力做到这一点。
欧阳泰，本名Tonio Andrade，Emory University历史学教授，汉学家和全球史学家。以下介绍摘自Emory University历史系欧阳泰介绍。 Tonio Andrade欧阳泰, Professor(B.A., Reed College,1992; M.A., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,1994; M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D., Yale University,1997,1998, and2000).
