The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China, (Paperback)

How did the Manchus, a barely literate alien people, manage to achieve and maintain power for nearly 300 years over a highly cultured population that was vastly superior in number? Until this book, the first in any language to be based mainly on Manchu documents, no one has approached this problem from the Manchu point of view. It presents a radically new perspective on the formative period of the modern Chinese state.