Typically neglected by scholars of imperialism, the semi-colonial urban environments of China's treaty ports offer fascinating insights into a different kind of imperial history, one that challenges the taken-for-granted correlation between colonial and nationalist histories. Largely studied through the humanities, this period is one of imperial expansion and competition for maritime commerce. Successive efforts at reconfiguring cities in the imperial image, the introduction of hybrid modern institutions and the eclectic architecture of the foreign concessions and international settlements suggest the rich range of material uncovered through a spatial approach. The authors in the edited volume, Harbin to Hanoi, are drawn from the humanities and the social sciences including history, art history, architecture, urban planning and Asian studies. The two editors are historians of empire well equipped for a comparative approach. Laura Victoir (Department of History, City University New York) specializes in Imperial Russia and French Colonial Asia, and Victor Zatsepine (Department of History, University of Hong Kong) in China's frontier history and the history of Sino-Russian encounters. The publisher, Hong Kong University Press, is a trail-blazer in English-language publishing in Asia.

The editors’ stated objective is to compare the experiences of European imperial powers and Japan during the period between the significant imperial encounters of the First Opium War (1839–42) and World War II (1939–45). The book includes chapters on Japanese, Russian, German, French and British colonialisms in China and northern Indochina. It focuses on the cities designed and built by imperialism where there were concentrations of western and later Japanese influence, money and power. The project is interdisciplinary, is approached from an East Asian perspective and is committed to the ‘Global Connections’ advanced by the series title. It consequently escapes the familiar Eurocentric colonial discourses that have become entrenched in the discipline. The view from East Asia towards the Asian region and Europe distinguishes this focus from histories of Dutch and British imperialisms elsewhere. Colonization is reframed as an early stage of globalization.

Harbin to Hanoi broadens our understanding of imperialism and globalization in what is termed the post-national era. Whereas a generation of post-colonial historians critiqued revisionist national histories, Harbin to Hanoi avoids nationalism altogether. The structural shift presaged in this collection is towards a more generous inter-Asian understanding of the history of globalization from the geo-political south. Yet the implications of such critical realignment are not fully theorized. The bureaucratic capitalism of the German colonial encounter, the new Asian modernity devised by Japanese imperialism and the clash between existential and colonial configurations of Shanghai may well offer insights into contemporary global urban developments: the self-fashioning of post-liberalization China or potential new imperialisms.

The themes encountered in the anthology challenge the limits of national histories. Interactions between imperial powers, the interactions between colonizer and colonized and the instabilities of colonial regimes become the basis for a different view of history beyond the dialectics of power. The selection of cities along the coast bordering the South and East China Seas (from Harbin to Hanoi) with access to maritime trade further destabilizes conventional historical framings. Case-studies include Harbin (Victor Zatsepine), Changchun (Bill Sewell), Tianjin (Zhang Chang and Liu Yue), Manchuku o (David Tucker), Qingdao (Klaus Mühlhahn), Shanghai (Cole Roskam), Hong Kong (G.A. Bremner, Peter Cunich) and Hanoi (Lisa Drummond, Laura Victoir and Danielle Labbé, Caroline Herbelin and Qang-Vinh Dao). The history of China as a Qing empire and as a target of European and Japanese imperialism is contextualized. The story that unfolds is of capricious power relations where colonialism is indirect, unstable and often temporal. The built environment was evidently devised to exaggerate and fix this unstable authority.

In their introduction, the editors identify the gap they are hoping to fill. They mention analyses of everyday interactions between colonizers and the colonized, which include controversies and conflicts, disruptions of traditional life and labour histories. Cole Roskam's essay stands out for its use of Chinese maps, geomancy and urban riots in advancing his analysis of Shanghai as a ‘risk society’. The essays on specific architectural projects highlight the involvement of bourgeois clients, architects, contractors and labourers from among the native or indigenous populations. Yet the anthology departs markedly from post-colonial-subaltern historiography where the inscription and performance of racial and social difference supersedes imperial narratives. The collection is dominated by data from the imperial records. A more socially inclusive history would require a different set of questions and sources. In contrast, Harbin to Hanoi dissects and complicates the singular narrative of imperialism, which is a significant contribution in itself. The material at hand is diverse, original, of an excellent quality, with solid political and economic data to support it. It brings to light a little-known region, its governance and political contestations as a means for revising theorizations of imperialism.