Our interview with Kenneth M. Swope about his book, The Military Collapse of China’s Ming Dynasty, 1618-44 (Routledge, 2014), published through Routledge, is an effort to address an oversight in how New Books in Military History has generally overlooked both early modern history and works that have an exclusively non-Eurocentric focus. Swope’s book presents a very detailed assessment of the many challenges that underlie the collapse of the Ming Dynasty in China in the seventeenth century. More importantly, though, he challenges many previously held suppositions about Chinese military capabilities, culture, and society — restoring the Ming to their appropriate place as one of the most well-organized and equipped armies of the early modern era (at least in theory, that is . . . .) Steeped in rare Chinese sources and rich in analysis, this book is an important contribution by one of the field’s most important experts.
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