The title of this monograph by Patrick Fuliang Shan encapsulates its argument: Han Chinese immigration and settlement in Heilongjiang from 1900–1931 brought about the “taming” of China's last great “wilderness.” Within that wilderness, as he describes it, “nature was dominant and the inhabitants depended upon it for survival, but newcomers moved in, changed the land, overwhelmed the native population, exploited the natural resources and created their own society” (p. 1).

The turning point came in 1904, when the Qing Empire lifted the last remaining restrictions on Han Chinese migration and settlement in Heilongjiang to build what Shan terms a “human shield” capable of blocking ongoing incursions by the Russian Empire. Although banditry was a persistent problem in the region, by 1931 the availability of land, the lure of economic opportunities, and the official policy of fortifying the frontier (shibian) had drawn some four million migrants to Heilongjiang from Shandong and other parts of north China. Shan casts the resulting “integration of the Heilongjiang frontier region into the dominant Chinese political, cultural, social and economic framework” (p. 6) as an unambiguous movement towards the development of a thriving frontier region and (perhaps more than anything else) the extension of Chinese sovereignty. Throughout the book, Shan takes great pains to present Heilongjiang “as an essential part of China, yet one which possessed its own peculiar features” (p. 191).

Agricultural settlement and extension of private land ownership stimulated the emergence of a dynamic economy in Heilongjiang based on commercialized production of wheat and soy beans, often for international markets. Overwhelmed by the influx of Han Chinese migrants, as Shan contends, Heilongjiang's indigenous ethnic groups (Manchu, Mongol and Solon) succumbed to the irresistible forces of what he calls “Sinification,” apparently without putting up much resistance. What Shan terms “paternalistic” official policies encouraged these ethnic groups to adapt to farming and persuaded them to “adopt a pan-Chinese cultural mentality” (p. 8). Though he acknowledges the tremendous Russian influences that existed in northern Manchuria during the first three decades of the 20th century, Shan flatly rejects the notion that the region ever became a Russian “sphere of influence.” Instead, he insists that Heilongjiang retained its essential character as a Chinese territory under Chinese sovereignty.

Many readers will find these arguments less than compelling. One reference to Frederick Jackson Turner aside, Shan's discussion displays scant familiarity with the extensive comparative literature on the history of frontiers and borderlands. For this reason, his book comes across as rather out of step with current English-language scholarship. Throughout his narrative, Shan unabashedly celebrates the Han Chinese settlers who “weathered misfortune, conquered the wilderness, built their small farms and established an agricultural economy” (p. 70). In this fashion, his book reproduces and perpetuates a triumphalist narrative of Han Chinese expansion that the more recent historiography of China's borderlands has called into question and revised.

Shan presents Heilongjiang as a virgin land ripe for Chinese settlement and “opening up” (kaifa). The book takes at least passing note of the ecological changes that resulted from this process, such as land clearance and deforestation. This transformation of the landscape, as Shan recognizes, played a major role in eliminating the livelihood strategies of Heilongjiang's indigenous residents and forcing them to turn to agriculture. Shan rightly points out that a great deal of room exists for further research on the history of ecological change in Heilongjiang, though one should certainly not accept his claim that primary sources related to this topic are insufficient.

While recognizing that recent years have witnessed a “Manchurian boom” in Western academia, Shan for some reason overlooks James Reardon-Anderson's Reluctant Pioneers: China's Expansion Northward, 1644–1937 (Stanford University Press, 2005), which likewise focuses on the history of Han Chinese migration and settlement in the northeast. More troublingly, he has done nothing to engage with the often heated debates that have taken place over the last two decades regarding the significance of ethnicity and the role of “Sinicization” in Chinese history. Shan's rather unsophisticated treatment of these issues leads him to make some questionable claims, such as his assertion that, “While China took the initiative in winning them over [as allies against the Russians], the indigenous inhabitants leaned toward the Han, who were seen as racially close to them” (p. 116). A list of other such examples would be far too long to include in this review.

Part of the issue is that Shan's arguments often echo the perspectives of his sources, which consist largely of materials quoted in Chinese-language secondary scholarship on Heilongjiang or reprinted in published compilations, along with some original documents from Chinese archives. Shan does not delve deeply into these sources or read them with a critical eye. Though historians of Heilongjiang will find it worthwhile to consult the book's notes and bibliography to track down Chinese sources, few will accept its conclusions without some reservations.