博主讲的这些观点基本上和 Julia Lovell的The Opium War书里的观点差不多, 书有456页,2012年出版,正好这本书我10年前买了,现在Amazon上也可以买到。这个英国人Julia Lovell对史实以非常非常独特的方式进行阐述和解读使我极为惊诧。 这里引用一个Amazon读者的书评:"so far the book focuses on why the Chinese loves opium and drugs and how good it makes them feel etc. (the idea here is that the drug problem in China has to do with its addicts and not the drug pushers selling the stuff to them)." 如下是另外一个Amazon读者的书评(我本人100%同意这个读者的观点) : "Of course she will make excuse.The central logic of the author is that since the current Chinese communist government is bad, it is not a big deal that Britain bullied Chinese to buy their drug. And the Chinese are yellow peril anyway.I guess if Hitler won at the end of WII, some Germane professor will write a similar book on Holocaust." 书的大概内容 : 中国人当时盲目自大,地方官贪腐欺上瞒下,英国人没有好的途径沟通。等等为英国人做辩护,在最后的几章里说共产党以鸦片战争为由头宣扬民族主义,从而维护独裁统治。 博主的思想和这个Julia Lovell多少有些相似作为一个英国人写这些东西也可以理解。但是博主是中国人,对鸦片战争的看法和 Julia Lovell很有相似之处,不知道是博主通过自己研究产生了类似的看法,还是看了 Julia Lovell等类似人士的著作才形成了视频里看法。
推荐沈艾娣教授的新书《perils of interpreting, the extraordinary lives of two translators between Qing China and the British Empire》, princeton university press, 2021. 此书是马戛尔尼使团的翻译者李自标(Jacobus Lee甘肃武威人,那不勒斯东方大学毕业,1791年梵蒂冈进铎神甫)与小斯当东的传记。此书透露了马戛尔尼使团与清廷交涉谈判过程中不为人知的细节,是研究早期全球化历史的有趣研究。