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Yale professor’s book ‘systematically misrepresents’ sources, review claims
The first book of a Yale professor of Chinese history contains a “multitude of problems,” according to a no-holds-barred review published last month.
Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine: The Administrative Revolution of the Eighteenth-Century Qing State appeared last August from Harvard University Press. Its author, Maura Dykstra, is now an assistant professor of history at Yale.
In an extensive review that appeared in the Journal of Chinese History on August 31, George Qiao, an assistant professor of history and Asian languages and civilizations at Amherst College in Massachusetts, wrote that Dykstra’s book “fails to meet basic academic standards” and is “filled with misinformation.”
The book’s problems, according to Qiao, include typos, as well as:
flawed conception, numerous factual blunders, failure to engage existing scholarship, problematic choice of primary sources, and dubious citation practices.
In addition, he wrote, “the book systematically misrepresents the majority of its primary sources to support an untenable thesis.” Another academic said it “might be the most brutal academic book review I’ve ever seen.”
Qiao declined to comment, citing the sensitivity of the matter within the field and his lack of tenure.
Dykstra told us she would publish a response in the same journal, likely in the January issue, and declined to comment further.
In a blog post on the website of the Association for Asian Studies soon after the book’s publication, Dykstra told an interviewer that the project had come out of feedback she had received on a manuscript based on her dissertation. She began working on what became Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine “since people seemed very confused by my assumptions and claims about the evolving character of late imperial administration.”
We reached out to the Harvard University Asia Center – the book is in its monograph series – to ask about the review process the manuscript had undergone before publication, which would typically involve sending it to two experts for feedback. Kristen Wanner, director of the publications program, told us:
We don’t have any comments on Professor Qiao’s review at this time. We are also awaiting the author’s written response to the review.
The American Historical Association has this to say in its “Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct” for scholarship:
Historians should document their findings and be prepared to make available their sources, evidence, and data, including any documentation they develop through interviews. Historians should not misrepresent their sources. They should report their findings as accurately as possible and not omit evidence that runs counter to their own interpretation.
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