Litian Swen's work Jesuit Mission and Submission expands our understanding of the oft-celebrated Qing-era Jesuit missions through a thorough reorientation of the Jesuit experience as part of preexisting Manchu cultural traditions. By expanding the early modern cultural-conflicts paradigm by situating it in the context of Manchu culture, rather than the traditional Chinese-Western dichotomy, Swen brings a new perspective to well-trod historiographical ground.

Swen approaches the Kangxi-era Jesuit missionaries not as Western cultural ambassadors encountering Chinese society, but as players integrated into the pre-Qing Manchu master-slave hierarchy. Rather than being of an entirely subordinate class, as was the case for Han slaves, slaves in Manchu culture reflected the status of their masters, and a familial-style relationship of mutual loyalty was encouraged. In this context, Jesuit missionaries occupied a slave status vis-à-vis the emperor that by no means suggested drudgery or debasement; instead, according to Manchu custom, this identification imbued them with a level of imperial privilege, as well as protection under the Imperial Household Department. The role of the Kangxi emperor in relation to these men was one of paternalistic care; as he himself put it, “If we have raised a puppy in our household, we cannot allow it to be ill-used by someone else; am I to reject men whom I have fostered for 45 years, and of whose love and fidelity I have had proof from childhood?” (p. 17). Swen's delineation of the status of these “puppies” helps illustrate the complexity of cultural interactions in the early Qing court, particularly for Western scholars who, all too often, approach the dynasty as a dual encounter between East and West, rather than as a multiethnic nexus where the Chinese concept of emperor-subject, the Manchu concept of master-slave, and the Western concept of missionary-convert coexisted, complemented, and sometimes competed.

His use of the word “fate” to describe the expulsion of Catholic priests by the Yongzheng emperor in the 1720s invokes another significant point: that the ultimate termination of the Christian mission in Qing China was not an inevitability, but the coincidental result of the Yongzheng emperor's ascension and assumption of the “master” role previously occupied by the more amenable Kangxi. Yongzheng's promotion of Buddhism over Christianity was not the result of a linear series of historical circumstances tracking the waning fortunes of the Jesuits, but the coincidence of personal preference combining with imperial power—after all, as Swen argues, another of Kangxi's sons may well have become emperor and continued to promote Jesuit interests. Swen's discussion of the role of uncertainty and coincidence in history, and of the danger in assuming logical motivations in assessing historical events, is a valuable reminder for the discipline in general, beyond his specific subfield.

The book draws from a variety of published primary sources in English and Chinese, including translated Manchu archives and the records of the principal Jesuit missions during the Qing period. Swen ably marshals the available source material to support his argument clearly and convincingly. Less clear is the organization system, a cascading series of numbered parts, each containing numbered chapters, each in turn containing numbered sections. While it makes skimming the contents for information quick and easy, actual reading feels rushed and interrupted. However, this is a minor point and does not detract from Swen's important arguments. This work represents a significant shift in our understanding of cultural conflicts in early modern China.