The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 is indeed a much neglected subject in western literature, an event that irreversibly changed the scene of world politics and fundamentally altered the course of history of both the belligerents.

By the time of the hostility, Japan had already successfully carried out western-style socio-political reforms since the late 1860s in her attempt to enter into the modern era. Though still constitutionally unstable, Japan had become an industrialised nation without the rest of the world noticing. One of the fruits yielded from the Meiji Reforms (1868–71) was the creation of her modern military prowess, which would eventually plunge human society into a world war in little more than half a century. China, on the other hand, had been in the process of a socio-political decay since the early nineteenth century, which was drastically accelerated by the country's defeat in the Opium Wars against Britain (1839–41) and a Franco-British coalition (1860–61).

This background is perfectly captured by the author. The book follows the course of the war through western journalists' eye in an insightful narration, an approach never attempted before, therefore an invaluable contribution to Sino-Japanese War scholarship. The author also provides the reader with a brilliant analysis of the changing scene of colonialism in the East and the balance of power on the world stage at the time. She brings us to the realisation that the world map was changed just before the turn of the century by the emergence of two powers, the United States of America in the western hemisphere through the Spanish War of 1898, and Japan in the eastern hemisphere through the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, nearly a decade before her much more recognised victory over Russia in 1904. Aside of that, while there are few facts of significance that we have not already been aware of, Paine adds a much more pertinent Russian dimension to the picture, which offers insights into the motivation of both the belligerents and the western powers at play. Russian is here catalogued with Japan as a reformed regime, in comparison with the two unreformed regimes, China and Korea, where the war was fought. She also points out that it was at least partially through China's fear of the Russian threat that Japan was able to hold her opponent at bay on the eve of the hostility, preventing her from making an all-out effort to prepare for the eventuality. Both these facts have been largely ignored or under-estimated in western and Chinese literature.

The major weakness of the book is obviously the lack of original Chinese sources, which seriously compromises its structural soundness, for a general account of the war would have involved consulting all the important sources and works in the major languages concerned, and a criticism of the wartime journalism would also have needed sources from both sides of the hostility to check on the relevance of the coverage. For this reason, the reader is not afforded a comprehensive narration of the course of the hostility, nor an analysis of comparative strength and readiness of the antagonists. The result therefore takes the form of a compromise between a general history and a case study of journalism.

Mistakes in factual narration caused by quotations from unchecked sources would also have been easily avoided had the author had access to original sources. For instance, there were no “Moslem banners” in the Chinese military structure, as quoted in page 141, and The New York Times's report that “the Chinese and Manchu soldiers frequently attacked one another, and many bloody fights have taken place” (p. 169), which is quoted as a fact, is in effect a hearsay never recorded by Chinese or Japanese sources. Fights between Chinese units did occur in the battles of P'yngyang and Port Arthur but they were the results of the confusion caused by countermands rather than ethnic hostility.

Furthermore, misdates such as the Emperors Kangxi and Yongzheng's “combined rule extended from 1661 to 1799” (the correct dates should be 1661–1735) are hard to explain, and the combination of the Pinying, which is a pronouncing system used with the simplified characters in mainland China, and the traditional characters, which are used in Taiwan and Hong Kong with the Wade-Giles pronouncing system, gives the reader an odd impression.