western study of china was changing, however. john k. fairbank went to morse for scholarly guidance in 1929 and considered himself a disciple. he wrote that although the older scholar lived through the decades of foreign imperialism and the collapse of the qing empire, his historical work "avoids the obtrusive chauvinism of the western treaty port community of that period." he recalled that "to me, as to other beginners, he offered generous encouragement and wise counsel." fairbank characterized "the international relations of the chinese empire" as "the most comprehensive history of modern china" in its time, but added that it was "foreign-documented bluebook history," that is, diplomatic history which described foreign wars and treaties – "what was done in and to china by foreigners." he noted that in the 1930s, a new generation of china specialists (including himself) chose to explore and emphasize the chinese part of the story and what he called "china's response to the west." that is, the new focus was on china, not the west. fairbank noted that morse "records the criticisms... but gives little indication of the more positive side of the confucian tradition, including its effort to maintain the ideals of loyalty and public service, and its capacity for reform." morse, moreover, was isolated from chinese colleagues because of his wife's strong dislike of them—by having few chinese friends, he was "flying on one wing." morse had neither the documents from the chinese archives nor the conceptual tools of later scholars. although he supplied chapter and verse for foreign aggression in china, "imperialism" was not mentioned as such. nevertheless, even today there is still no other english language survey of china's diplomatic relations in the nineteenth century. "international relations" was a sourcebook basic to such marxist surveys as hu sheng's imperialism and chinese politics (1952) and a chinese translation was published in beijing in 1957. the recent opening of archives in china has made available maritime commission documents which are not available outside that country, and morse's contributions will be further revised.