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The Compensations of Plunder: How China Lost Its Treasures
From the 1790s until World War I, Western museums filled their shelves with art and antiquities from around the world. These objects are now widely regarded as stolen from their countries of origin, and demands for their repatriation grow louder by the day. In The Compensations of Plunder, Justin M. Jacobs brings to light the historical context of the exodus of cultural treasures from northwestern China. Based on a close analysis of previously neglected archives in English, French, and Chinese, Jacobs finds that many local elites in China acquiesced to the removal of art and antiquities abroad, understanding their trade as currency for a cosmopolitan elite. In the decades after the 1911 Revolution, however, these antiquities went from being “diplomatic capital” to disputed icons of the emerging nation-state. A new generation of Chinese scholars began to criminalize the prior activities of archaeologists, erasing all memory of the pragmatic barter relationship that once existed in China. Recovering the voices of those local officials, scholars, and laborers who shaped the global trade in antiquities, The Compensations of Plunder brings historical grounding to a highly contentious topic in modern Chinese history and informs heated debates over cultural restitution throughout the world.
352 pages, Paperback
Published July 6, 2020
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About the author
Justin M. Jacobs
6 books3 followersJustin M. Jacobs is associate professor of history at American University in Washington, DC.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 18, 2020
Like Aurel Stein, I've travelled four times through Xinjiang following the ancient silk roads, so a book that both begins and ends with Stein's departures from the region immediately found a warm spot in my heart and on my bookshelf alongside the diaries of all the other great early travellers and archaeologists such as Sven Hedin, Langdon Warner, Ellsworth Huntington, Paul Pelliot ... and the monk who started it all, Xuanzang. Then there are all the works that feature aspects of the region by such authors as Christopher Beckwith, Peter Hopkirk, Frances Wood, Roderick Whitfield, Victor Mair.... All of this to preface that this is the first book I'm aware of that has opened the diaries and papers of the bureaucrats and officials they encountered on these expeditions to tell us (to be blunt) how the h-ll they got away with it all!
It is so refreshing to discover that I am not alone in finding Sven Hedin stubborn and arrogant; many of the Chinese officials he dealt with (not to mention his labourers) obviously felt the same way (most likely especially those men who died due to his negligence). Only Stein seemed to have maintained good relationships with his counterparts and the officials he had to deal with, "Andrews was too impatient, too enamored of celebrity, and too quick to burn bridges," Hedin "too used to getting his way throughout the non-Western world" (p. 240) while Warner was engaged in maintaining a web of "deliberate half-truths." Stein, Hedin and Pelliot were all three known for their "deeply insensitive comments on race and class" (p. 277) while wandering through the region excavating and squirreling away valuable manuscripts and artefacts to take back to western museums.
The answer is beautifully researched by Professor Jacobs, who credits in his Acknowledgments some of the early lecturers and advisors he studied with as a university and graduate student (one of them being Daniel Waugh from the U. of Washington, whom I had the pleasure of travelling with in the region about fifteen years ago myself). But I won't spoil your reading for yourself, this must-read book for anyone seriously interested in understanding the nature of these early expeditions, and why it all changed after the first body of western-educated Chinese scholars returned to China. I say 'seriously interested' because this is not a book casually traversed. Its 286 pages are thick with quotes from original resources (the papers and diaries, official and personal of the key actors) that stimulated me, at least, to dig out the perpetrators' published works to compare their accounts of certain meetings or events, with the papers and diaries uncovered by author Jacobs. The research this book must have entailed is to be admired. It's a book I know I will be returning to again.
The Index and Bibliography are both excellent, and the glossary of Chinese characters greatly appreciated (谢谢!). I discovered on the back cover that Professor Jacobs has a series of podcasts on E. Asian history called Beyond Huaxia that focuses on Chinese and Japanese history and covers some unexpected topics. I look forward to listening to them.
Addendum written 24 hours after writing the above review:
I kept thinking last night, in those twilight minutes before falling asleep, how different my life would have been without the above men and the treasures they brought back with them to the west. I grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the shadow of Harvard University. Every weekend my parents took me to some of the best museums in the world and it was there that I became fascinated with 'things foreign' -- including those spoils plundered from China. Eventually, I majored in Asian studies, and moved to Hong Kong and have been resident and working in this part of the world for more than three decades. My love of 'things Chinese' was enhanced along the way by visits to the British and Metropolitan Museums' China galleries as well as those in Berlin (more plundered goods but saved from the destruction I have now seen in today's China along the Silk Road of scratched-out faces, obliterated frescos and murals for both political and/or religious reasons), not to mention parts of the Great Wall nearly driven to the ground after being climbed on by countless 'visitors'. The issue of ‘plunder’ is therefore not so black-and-white as it first appears. Even those panels believed destroyed during WWII in Germany by Allied bombers turn out to be safe today as they were plundered in turn and taken to Russia. Hence the questions being discussed amongst so many scholars and museums today: Plundered or Saved? Keep or Return? (And is keeping them anywhere, a promise of their safety?) More sleepless nights clearly await....
It is so refreshing to discover that I am not alone in finding Sven Hedin stubborn and arrogant; many of the Chinese officials he dealt with (not to mention his labourers) obviously felt the same way (most likely especially those men who died due to his negligence). Only Stein seemed to have maintained good relationships with his counterparts and the officials he had to deal with, "Andrews was too impatient, too enamored of celebrity, and too quick to burn bridges," Hedin "too used to getting his way throughout the non-Western world" (p. 240) while Warner was engaged in maintaining a web of "deliberate half-truths." Stein, Hedin and Pelliot were all three known for their "deeply insensitive comments on race and class" (p. 277) while wandering through the region excavating and squirreling away valuable manuscripts and artefacts to take back to western museums.
The answer is beautifully researched by Professor Jacobs, who credits in his Acknowledgments some of the early lecturers and advisors he studied with as a university and graduate student (one of them being Daniel Waugh from the U. of Washington, whom I had the pleasure of travelling with in the region about fifteen years ago myself). But I won't spoil your reading for yourself, this must-read book for anyone seriously interested in understanding the nature of these early expeditions, and why it all changed after the first body of western-educated Chinese scholars returned to China. I say 'seriously interested' because this is not a book casually traversed. Its 286 pages are thick with quotes from original resources (the papers and diaries, official and personal of the key actors) that stimulated me, at least, to dig out the perpetrators' published works to compare their accounts of certain meetings or events, with the papers and diaries uncovered by author Jacobs. The research this book must have entailed is to be admired. It's a book I know I will be returning to again.
The Index and Bibliography are both excellent, and the glossary of Chinese characters greatly appreciated (谢谢!). I discovered on the back cover that Professor Jacobs has a series of podcasts on E. Asian history called Beyond Huaxia that focuses on Chinese and Japanese history and covers some unexpected topics. I look forward to listening to them.
Addendum written 24 hours after writing the above review:
I kept thinking last night, in those twilight minutes before falling asleep, how different my life would have been without the above men and the treasures they brought back with them to the west. I grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the shadow of Harvard University. Every weekend my parents took me to some of the best museums in the world and it was there that I became fascinated with 'things foreign' -- including those spoils plundered from China. Eventually, I majored in Asian studies, and moved to Hong Kong and have been resident and working in this part of the world for more than three decades. My love of 'things Chinese' was enhanced along the way by visits to the British and Metropolitan Museums' China galleries as well as those in Berlin (more plundered goods but saved from the destruction I have now seen in today's China along the Silk Road of scratched-out faces, obliterated frescos and murals for both political and/or religious reasons), not to mention parts of the Great Wall nearly driven to the ground after being climbed on by countless 'visitors'. The issue of ‘plunder’ is therefore not so black-and-white as it first appears. Even those panels believed destroyed during WWII in Germany by Allied bombers turn out to be safe today as they were plundered in turn and taken to Russia. Hence the questions being discussed amongst so many scholars and museums today: Plundered or Saved? Keep or Return? (And is keeping them anywhere, a promise of their safety?) More sleepless nights clearly await....
October 12, 2023
A scholarly research as to why China lost many antiquities at the hands of Western archaeologists at the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th century.
In this book, Justin Jacobs presents the view on how the local populace and Confucian elites of Xinjiang collaborated with Western explorers in their own volition for the sake of gaining some sort of benefit for themselves. A benefit that came in the form of economic, social or political capital depending on the class or social rank of the Chinese facilitator.
Such a thesis goes against the grain of Chinese scholars that for many decades dismissed the figures of those Western explorers they considered "foreign devils" (to paraphrase Peter Hopkirk's Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia).
For such work, Jacobs relied on many unpublished accounts, such as Aurel Stein's letters. Therefore, the book has many references to the original sources where the material and quotes come from.
To come up with this conclusion, the backbone of the material gravitates around the figures of Aurel Stein, Paul Pelliot, Roy Chapman Andrews, Ellsworth Huntington, Langdon Warner and to a lesser extent Sven Hedin. Jacobs also went through both published and unpublished material by the Chinese people whom the westerners interacted with. However, I do wonder about the experience of other explorers as well, most notably the Russians (Nikolai Przewalski and Pyotr Kozlov).
At any rate, this is a well-researched piece of work that makes other popular books in bookshops look amateurish in comparison.
In this book, Justin Jacobs presents the view on how the local populace and Confucian elites of Xinjiang collaborated with Western explorers in their own volition for the sake of gaining some sort of benefit for themselves. A benefit that came in the form of economic, social or political capital depending on the class or social rank of the Chinese facilitator.
Such a thesis goes against the grain of Chinese scholars that for many decades dismissed the figures of those Western explorers they considered "foreign devils" (to paraphrase Peter Hopkirk's Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia).
For such work, Jacobs relied on many unpublished accounts, such as Aurel Stein's letters. Therefore, the book has many references to the original sources where the material and quotes come from.
To come up with this conclusion, the backbone of the material gravitates around the figures of Aurel Stein, Paul Pelliot, Roy Chapman Andrews, Ellsworth Huntington, Langdon Warner and to a lesser extent Sven Hedin. Jacobs also went through both published and unpublished material by the Chinese people whom the westerners interacted with. However, I do wonder about the experience of other explorers as well, most notably the Russians (Nikolai Przewalski and Pyotr Kozlov).
At any rate, this is a well-researched piece of work that makes other popular books in bookshops look amateurish in comparison.
May 30, 2022
An excellent and informed riposte to the increasingly prevalent notion that all art objects and ancient artefacts acquired in colonial and semi-colonial contexts are imperialist 'loot' - i.e. stolen - due to the relative imbalance in social/financial standing of the respective parties involved (individuals and nations). The Compensations of Plunder takes a leavening view of the current trends informing both popular and academic historiographical outlooks and warns against projecting our own perceptions and values onto historical actors whose worldviews were differently informed and therefore wholly distinct when compared to our own.
Using the most prominent Western archaeologists of 'the Silk Road' (Aurel Stein, Sven Hedin, Paul Pelliot, Roy Chapman Andrews, Langdon Warner) during the first half of the twentieth century as his main examples, Jacobs explores the difference in outlook between local officials at the time (rooted in traditional Confucian scholarly ideals) and their later (more nationalist-minded) successors who vilified the likes of archaeologists such as Sir Marc Aurel Stein. In doing so, Jacobs demonstrates how the concept of value in relation to archaeological artefacts and ancient manuscripts altered over time as a direct result of such outsiders interests in acquiring, preserving and studying such material. Originally the permissions extended to, and the subsequent transactions with these outsiders were fully understood and sanctioned by local elites and other indigenous agents, who perceived they were receiving a worthwhile return in the form of cultural, social, political, diplomatic as well as *financial* capital from such interactions and exchanges (hence the ironic title: 'compensations of plunder'). Indeed, without their active cooperation these Western archaeologists could not have travelled so widely, or excavated so extensively, nor removed such large quantities of material from the region. Ironically again, it was the moulding of the perception of later Chinese elites, a new younger generation of scholars and officials, who were often trained in the West, whose perceptions changed and so turned against foreign academics and 'imperialist adventurers' who had previously operated in China and eventually succeeded in drastically curtailing their activities when they agreed to undertake such expeditions jointly with Chinese academics, or otherwise managed to shut them down entirely and ultimately kick them out altogether, even before the advent of the CCP in 1949.
But that's not to say Jacobs is wholly uncritical of these foreign outsiders. He takes a broad view of the activities of each and examines the specifics of how (perhaps primarily due to their personalities) their methods and approaches differed, leading some to succeed where others failed, and some to be honoured and held in high esteem by locals (both elites and subalterns), while others were quite rightly scorned due to their haughty arrogance and high-handed manners, as well as their culturally insensitive and/or physically destructive methods whilst operating 'in the field.' In this respect, Jacobs bucks prevailing trends once again by appearing to be most sympathetic to Stein - who is often perceived and painted today as the archvillain of the group. Instead, Jacobs endeavours to show how Stein was the one archaeologist of the group (with Paul Pelliot perhaps coming a close second) who was most respected and the most sensitive to the mores of the old order of Confucian scholar-administrators, and how Stein was perhaps the least destructive, when compared to the likes of the more gung-ho proto-'Indiana Joneses', such as Roy Chapman Andrews and Langdon Warner.
Jacobs provides an excellent and thorough analysis of a solid and wide-ranging base of primary source material (both Western and Chinese), although I feel it is a shame that he concentrates almost exclusively on the bigger names, such as Stein, Hedin and Pelliot. Other colonial-era adventurers, for example, Kōzui Ōtani and Zuicho Tachibana, to name just two of the more unusual figures within this wider group, get only a passing mention relatively early on in the book, but this is perhaps understandable given the amount of material and the range of themes which Jacobs is able to explore and elucidate in the very comprehensive manner that he does. Putting that (perhaps subjective) quibble to one side, it does very clearly strike me that the book lends itself to potentially broader applications beyond the limitations of this particular study. Jacobs’ primary focus is, of course, the archaeological activities undertaken in the regions of Xinjiang and Gansu; however, there is clearly scope for his ideas to be extended to the art and antiquities market more widely and other (perhaps more commonplace) art objects which were acquired privately by individuals or for public museum collections in the West, particularly during the twilight era of Western colonial expansion and imperialist interaction with other parts of the world.
Essentially, this book is a salient reminder that history is not a simple case of right versus wrong or black versus white, but rather it is more like a kind of temporal 'grayscale', a gradated pattern of change which morphs over time. The Compensations of Plunder very deftly demonstrates how the sensitive historian should be prepared to modify their approaches and their final opinions accordingly if they wish to gain the greatest insights, particularly in terms of understanding the people who lived before us according to their own terms, rather than exclusively seeing everything through a blinkered back-projection of our own current worldview.
Using the most prominent Western archaeologists of 'the Silk Road' (Aurel Stein, Sven Hedin, Paul Pelliot, Roy Chapman Andrews, Langdon Warner) during the first half of the twentieth century as his main examples, Jacobs explores the difference in outlook between local officials at the time (rooted in traditional Confucian scholarly ideals) and their later (more nationalist-minded) successors who vilified the likes of archaeologists such as Sir Marc Aurel Stein. In doing so, Jacobs demonstrates how the concept of value in relation to archaeological artefacts and ancient manuscripts altered over time as a direct result of such outsiders interests in acquiring, preserving and studying such material. Originally the permissions extended to, and the subsequent transactions with these outsiders were fully understood and sanctioned by local elites and other indigenous agents, who perceived they were receiving a worthwhile return in the form of cultural, social, political, diplomatic as well as *financial* capital from such interactions and exchanges (hence the ironic title: 'compensations of plunder'). Indeed, without their active cooperation these Western archaeologists could not have travelled so widely, or excavated so extensively, nor removed such large quantities of material from the region. Ironically again, it was the moulding of the perception of later Chinese elites, a new younger generation of scholars and officials, who were often trained in the West, whose perceptions changed and so turned against foreign academics and 'imperialist adventurers' who had previously operated in China and eventually succeeded in drastically curtailing their activities when they agreed to undertake such expeditions jointly with Chinese academics, or otherwise managed to shut them down entirely and ultimately kick them out altogether, even before the advent of the CCP in 1949.
But that's not to say Jacobs is wholly uncritical of these foreign outsiders. He takes a broad view of the activities of each and examines the specifics of how (perhaps primarily due to their personalities) their methods and approaches differed, leading some to succeed where others failed, and some to be honoured and held in high esteem by locals (both elites and subalterns), while others were quite rightly scorned due to their haughty arrogance and high-handed manners, as well as their culturally insensitive and/or physically destructive methods whilst operating 'in the field.' In this respect, Jacobs bucks prevailing trends once again by appearing to be most sympathetic to Stein - who is often perceived and painted today as the archvillain of the group. Instead, Jacobs endeavours to show how Stein was the one archaeologist of the group (with Paul Pelliot perhaps coming a close second) who was most respected and the most sensitive to the mores of the old order of Confucian scholar-administrators, and how Stein was perhaps the least destructive, when compared to the likes of the more gung-ho proto-'Indiana Joneses', such as Roy Chapman Andrews and Langdon Warner.
Jacobs provides an excellent and thorough analysis of a solid and wide-ranging base of primary source material (both Western and Chinese), although I feel it is a shame that he concentrates almost exclusively on the bigger names, such as Stein, Hedin and Pelliot. Other colonial-era adventurers, for example, Kōzui Ōtani and Zuicho Tachibana, to name just two of the more unusual figures within this wider group, get only a passing mention relatively early on in the book, but this is perhaps understandable given the amount of material and the range of themes which Jacobs is able to explore and elucidate in the very comprehensive manner that he does. Putting that (perhaps subjective) quibble to one side, it does very clearly strike me that the book lends itself to potentially broader applications beyond the limitations of this particular study. Jacobs’ primary focus is, of course, the archaeological activities undertaken in the regions of Xinjiang and Gansu; however, there is clearly scope for his ideas to be extended to the art and antiquities market more widely and other (perhaps more commonplace) art objects which were acquired privately by individuals or for public museum collections in the West, particularly during the twilight era of Western colonial expansion and imperialist interaction with other parts of the world.
Essentially, this book is a salient reminder that history is not a simple case of right versus wrong or black versus white, but rather it is more like a kind of temporal 'grayscale', a gradated pattern of change which morphs over time. The Compensations of Plunder very deftly demonstrates how the sensitive historian should be prepared to modify their approaches and their final opinions accordingly if they wish to gain the greatest insights, particularly in terms of understanding the people who lived before us according to their own terms, rather than exclusively seeing everything through a blinkered back-projection of our own current worldview.
April 23, 2021
The book addresses the question of plunder of world's antiquities by Western archeologists between 1800 and 1914, this time from the perspective of Xinjiang and (mostly) Stein's expeditions there. The title may indicate some sort of a flat anti-colonialist narrative; in fact, the conclusion puts such a narrative to a deserved rest.
Having read the books of Layard (discovery of Nineveh) and Budge (British Museum acquisition agent in Egypt, Sudan, and Iraq at that time) I had some appreciation for the scale of the question at least in the Near East. Of course, Jacobs has a completely different perspective (a professor currently based in the US) and the Chinese situation was different as well. In the end, after consulting a mountain of hard-to-get sources to triple-check his logic, he arrives at the same conclusion that I did after reading the colonialists. Which is reassuring, but also somewhat anti-climactic.
I enjoyed reading the book, it is thoroughly sourced and well-organized, with entertaining details dispersed throughout. The book does assume familiarity with history and topography of inner Asia, and history of China between 1850 and 1950. In the end though, be warned that the author spends 300 pages and a lot of work to arrive at a conclusion which was obvious to all actors at the time.
Having read the books of Layard (discovery of Nineveh) and Budge (British Museum acquisition agent in Egypt, Sudan, and Iraq at that time) I had some appreciation for the scale of the question at least in the Near East. Of course, Jacobs has a completely different perspective (a professor currently based in the US) and the Chinese situation was different as well. In the end, after consulting a mountain of hard-to-get sources to triple-check his logic, he arrives at the same conclusion that I did after reading the colonialists. Which is reassuring, but also somewhat anti-climactic.
I enjoyed reading the book, it is thoroughly sourced and well-organized, with entertaining details dispersed throughout. The book does assume familiarity with history and topography of inner Asia, and history of China between 1850 and 1950. In the end though, be warned that the author spends 300 pages and a lot of work to arrive at a conclusion which was obvious to all actors at the time.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews