Illinois: A History - Richard J. Jensen - Hardcover Book

“The Immobile Empire” is an extremely comprehensive account of Britain’s embassy to China under Lord Macartney, and the resulting consequences of it. Exhaustively researched from both the British & Chinese perspectives of the time, I found it to be, for the most part, quite fascinating. Given the author’s French background, his input handling both sides from a relatively impartial standpoint felt unique and was much appreciated. His continual updates throughout the book as to what the nation of France at the time was up to as this or that event played out in China was also edifying and rather amusing on multiple occasions.

With all that said, I have to confess that the book started to get tedious for me about half of the way through and up until the very end. When you’ve read the 300th example of two polar opposite nations with superiority complexes offending one another, it starts to get repetitive. It feels unfair to blame the author for this as it is just a result of his thoroughness, tapping into every viewpoint and document he could get his hands on. But the result from a narrative standpoint was a pacing that can only be described as glacial. Which is a tragedy since, this one major complaint aside, this is arguably the most definitive and informative book on this event one could write.