 Prominent sinologists were also critical of the work . In the pages of The New York Times , Owen Lattimore condemned Ways That Are Dark as " a general indictment of a whole race " which lacks insight , contains factual errors , and relies on second @-@ hand accounts . He stated that the book would " only convince people who are convinced already . " Nathaniel <unk> likewise denounced the book as " a rehash of all the old patter of the <unk> hotel lobbies , with all its half @-@ truths , inaccuracies , provincialism , ignorance and sometimes crassness ... [ Townsend ] has not managed to observe accurately the most simple and superficial things . " <unk> Bland , though deeming Townsend 's conclusions " as a whole ... unconvincing " , at least found the chapter on opium " particularly instructive . " 
