French suggests China’s place in the world today, and the increasingly robust manner in which it is engaged in the coastal areas surrounding it, must be understood through a historical lens. While there are clearly economic motivations for China’s desire to control the seas, invest in ports and airports and mining in Africa, and buy ever-larger amounts of coal and titanium, there is also a cultural and historical drive. China’s actions today are not the consequence of new imperatives. Instead, French argues, with the recent revival of nationalism, and a sense that China must play a wider and more important role in the world, Beijing is (self-) fulfilling a historical mandate. –The Johannesburg Review of Books/