Book excerpt: "No one in the West knows the archives of China's last dynasty better than Professor Bartlett. Monarchs and Ministers affords us one of the first truly informed views of imperial Chinese policy-making from the inside."--Frederic Wakeman, University of California, Berkeley "Monarchs and Ministers is one of those rare works that commands unanimous assent and constitutes a breakthrough."--Pierre-Henri Durand, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris