Weipin Tsai, "The Making of China's Post Office: Sovereignty, Modernization, and the Connection of a Nation" (Harvard UP, 2024)

The Chinese post office, established in 1896 amid the Qing dynasty's decline, was not a mere administrative afterthought but a bold instrument of modern statecraft and sovereignty. Weiping Tsai's groundbreaking book reveals how this institution—born from the foreign-controlled Chinese Maritime Customs Service—became a lifeline for imperial authority, connecting remote regions like Tibet to Beijing through a 1,800-kilometer overland route that took 50 days to traverse. Far from being a dry bureaucratic history, Tsai brings the postal system to life through the stories of individuals: Irish-born inspector Donovan navigating local politics in tea houses, and Chinese postal officer Deng Weifan making on-the-ground decisions to open branches in prosperous villages. The post office’s survival was anything but guaranteed—facing resistance from officials, lack of funding, and the shadow of foreign influence. Yet through strategic partnerships with local shops, visually striking pillar boxes, and deliberately cheap postage, it embedded itself in daily life. Tsai also dismantles myths, showing how foreign officials like Robert Hart romanticized the post office as their 'baby,' while revolutionary nationalists later rejected it as a colonial relic.