China and the West
China and the West

Author: Jerome Ch'en

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-10

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 0429874502

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This penetrating study of China’s social and cultural contacts with the West, first published in 1979, analyses the early images that China and the West had of one another, and the illusions and misconceptions that arose from these images. The book centres on the question, why did China fail to become modernised through contact with the West before the 1930s? The author examines the roles played by the agents of change – emigrants, missionaries, traders, scholars and diplomats – and the political, economic, social and cultural developments which the transmission of their ideas set in motion. The book also looks at the ways in which change was frustrated by the rulers of the country, the leaders of the imperial government and later the warlords, politicians and followers of Chiang Kai-shek. Through the author's analysis of the complex factors involved, based on extensive original research into private archive material from all over the world, and his study of the influence of centuries of Chinese cultural tradition, China’s slow path to modernisation is explained and illuminated.

William Nelson Lovatt in Late Qing China
William Nelson Lovatt in Late Qing China

Author: Wayne Patterson

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-11-07

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1498566472

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William Nelson Lovatt in Late Qing China: War, Maritime Customs, and Treaty Ports,1860-1904 looks at the late Qing dynasty through the eyes of a British-American who spent most of his adult life in China in the late nineteenth century, fighting in four wars, serving in its maritime customs service, and living in eleven different treaty ports. It is based on the newly-discovered journals, correspondence, and photographs of William Nelson Lovatt (1838-1904), who first arrived in China in 1860 as a sergeant in the British army to fight in the Second Opium War, and who then proceeded to fight against the Taiping in Shanghai, against the Nian in Tianjin, and finally against the Japanese in Taiwan, providing an inside look at those four conflicts. Joining the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service in 1863 under Inspector-General Sir Robert Hart, Lovatt provides a rare insider look at the operation of Hart and the Maritime Customs Service for during the four decades he served. Because he was based in treaty ports, he also provides a new look at those enclaves, their institutions, and their inhabitants – Chinese, missionaries, and fellow customs officials. Fluent in Chinese, his frequent travels outside the treaty ports gave him rare access to Chinese society available to few others. This volume opens up a new window on China during the final decades of the Qing dynasty.

China in a Polycentric World
China in a Polycentric World

Author: Yingjin Zhang

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780804735094

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This collection provides a critical reexamination of the development and current status of comparative literature studies that engage the literary practices of both China and the West. In so doing, it attempts to refashion literary methodologies and cultural theories in Chinese studies and reread several noncanonical texts in ways that cut across disciplines, genders, and modernities. Eschewing conventional taxonomies such as the study of literary influences and parallels, this volume shifts the emphasis from Chinese-Western comparativism to a critical rereading of Chinese or China-related texts using a variety of new critical approaches. Essays that draw on literary history, comparative poetics, modernist aesthetics, feminist studies, gender theory, and postcolonial discourse exemplify how multifaceted approaches can enrich our understanding of this field. The essays are grouped in three parts: studies of disciplines, institutions, and canon formation; gender, sexuality, and the body; and technology, modernity, and aesthetics. They cover a range of subjects, including the challenge of East-West comparative literature, the impact of literary theory on Sinological research, canon formation in traditional Chinese poetry, gender and sexuality in Ming drama, contemporary Chinese fiction and television drama, the problem of translation, the influence of science fiction, and the "cult of poetry” in post-Mao China. The introductory chapter traces the rise of the Chinese school of comparative literature and addresses the issues facing Western scholars of Chinese-Western comparative literature. A concluding chapter summarizes recent remappings of the geocultural world and outlines future possibilities for comparative literature.

Wei Yüan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World
Wei Yüan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World

Author: Jane Kate Leonard

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-05-11

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 1684172454

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This book revises earlier views of statecraft reformer Wei Yuan and of Chinese foreign relations during the nineteenth century. Approaching the history of nineteenth-century China from the perspective of Southeast Asian history, the author demonstrates the interaction, from Ch'in times onwards, between China and the Southern ocean or Nan-yang.

The United States and China, 4th Revised and Enlarged Edition
The United States and China, 4th Revised and Enlarged Edition

Author: John King FAIRBANK

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-06-30

Total Pages: 662

ISBN-13: 0674036646

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For generations scholars and the general public have looked to John King Fairbank for knowledge and insights about China. In four editions of this work he has provided these. Reviews of this book: "An indispensable book for thoughtful people." DD--New York Times Book Review "Fairbank provides a miraculously concise account of Chinese civilization from its foundations to the present day...Maps, photographs, and an 80-page bibliography make this an invaluable reference work." DD--New Republic "As useful and timely as when it first appeared in 1948. Written by America's foremost China scholar, John Fairbank, the book addresses a popular, not the academic, audience. It offers a sweeping view of the Chinese polity from ancient times up to the recent, convoluted period of Western contact, spiced by the wit and insight into detail of a geographer who drew the maps himself...Yet the book offers much to the specialist as well as the layman. To the historian, a state-of-the-art review of the latest historical analysis of modern china...To the student, a cogent guide to the field...For the diplomat and businessman, the work explores that most intangible but also most influential area of human feeling between the two countries that has launched ventures and derailed them." DD--China Business Review "The best general introduction to the Chinese political system...A book of love and great learning." DD--Kirkus Reviews "Still flashes with brilliance in its latest (fourth) incarnation...With this latest edition of what is arguably the best guide to China in any language, American and other non-Chinese readers may finally catch a glimpse of the 'very complex' Chinese way of life." DD--Asiaweek Literary Review "[Fairbank's] ability to transcend the academic to write a highly readable, authoritative, information-packed, perceptive and analytical account of the Chinese is unsurpassed. This is must reading for all Asiaphiles." DD--Asia Mail

Historical Dictionary of Modern China (1800-1949)
Historical Dictionary of Modern China (1800-1949)

Author: James Z. Gao

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2009-06-16

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 0810863081

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The Historical Dictionary of Modern China (1800-1949) offers a concise but comprehensive examination of the political, military, economic, social, and cultural development of modern China. Instead of focusing merely on the political elites of China, this reference covers a variety of significant persons, including women and ethnic minorities; new historical concepts; cultural and educational institutions; and economic activities. Drawing on newly-available records, including a large mass of governmental and family archives, the narratives presented reveal new facts, offer a new interpretation in accordance with China's modernization process during the late Qing period, and a revisionist perspective on the Republican history. The chronology records not only political and military events but also other experiences of the Chinese people. The bibliography gives prominence to current literature on China's drive towards modernization and appendixes provide the reader with detailed information on China's cultural and economic transformation.