The Invention of China in Early Modern England

The Invention of China in Early Modern England PDF Author: Jonathan E. Lux
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030840328
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
The Invention of China in Early Modern England describes how several different English communities became aware of China. It begins by describing how early modern intellectuals used the utopian ideal of China to license all kinds of progressive innovation before chronicling how England’s growing commerce in southeast Asia radically changed China’s representation in the English discourse community. For the new community of English merchants proposing to trade in Chinese goods, China became the seminal example in the growing discourse community of English Orientalism. It was an absolute or arbitrary authoritarian state, associated with crooked business dealings, and cloaked in a rhetoric of secrecy and exclusion—a dangerous exception to the traditions, values, and identities of the emergent English speaking states. Finally, the book points out some of the ways that contemporary English language sources continue to represent this early modern English thought tradition, labelling the complexities of modern China with analytical vocabulary perhaps better suited to the pressing political anxieties of the seventeenth century.

The Invention of China in Early Modern England

The Invention of China in Early Modern England PDF Author: Jonathan E. Lux
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030840328
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Invention of China in Early Modern England describes how several different English communities became aware of China. It begins by describing how early modern intellectuals used the utopian ideal of China to license all kinds of progressive innovation before chronicling how England’s growing commerce in southeast Asia radically changed China’s representation in the English discourse community. For the new community of English merchants proposing to trade in Chinese goods, China became the seminal example in the growing discourse community of English Orientalism. It was an absolute or arbitrary authoritarian state, associated with crooked business dealings, and cloaked in a rhetoric of secrecy and exclusion—a dangerous exception to the traditions, values, and identities of the emergent English speaking states. Finally, the book points out some of the ways that contemporary English language sources continue to represent this early modern English thought tradition, labelling the complexities of modern China with analytical vocabulary perhaps better suited to the pressing political anxieties of the seventeenth century.

The Invention of China

The Invention of China PDF Author: Bill Hayton
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300234821
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
"[A] smart take on modern Chinese nationalism" (Foreign Policy), this provocative account shows that "China"--and its 5,000 years of unified history--is a national myth, created only a century ago with a political agenda that persists to this day China's current leadership lays claim to a 5,000-year-old civilization, but "China" as a unified country and people, Bill Hayton argues, was created far more recently by a small group of intellectuals. In this compelling account, Hayton shows how China's present-day geopolitical problems--the fates of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, and the South China Sea--were born in the struggle to create a modern nation-state. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, reformers and revolutionaries adopted foreign ideas to "invent' a new vision of China. By asserting a particular, politicized version of the past the government bolstered its claim to a vast territory stretching from the Pacific to Central Asia. Ranging across history, nationhood, language, and territory, Hayton shows how the Republic's reworking of its past not only helped it to justify its right to rule a century ago--but continues to motivate and direct policy today.

The Laws and Economics of Confucianism

The Laws and Economics of Confucianism PDF Author: Taisu Zhang
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107141117
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Zhang argues that property institutions in preindustrial China and England were a cause of China's lagging development in preindustrial times.

Early Modern Britain, 1450–1750

Early Modern Britain, 1450–1750 PDF Author: John Miller
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316982505
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 491

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Book Description
This introductory textbook provides a wide-ranging survey of the political, social, cultural and economic history of early modern Britain, charting the gradual integration of the four kingdoms, from the Wars of the Roses to the formation of 'Britain', and the aftermath of England's unions with Wales and Scotland. The only textbook at this level to cover Britain and Ireland in depth over three centuries, it offers a fully integrated British perspective, with detailed attention given to social change throughout all chapters. Featuring source textboxes, illustrations, highlighted key terms and accompanying glossary, timelines, student questioning, and annotated further reading suggestions, including key websites and links, this textbook will be an essential resource for undergraduate courses on the history of early modern Britain. A companion website includes additional primary sources and bibliographic resources.

China and England

China and England PDF Author: Martin Powers
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367545284
Category : England
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
This book examines egalitarian social ideals and institutions that arose in preindustrial China and England, and in the process, uncovers China's forgotten role in the history of social justice debate and legislation during the eighteenth century. Drawing on a wide range of visual and documentary evidence, the author shows that many prominent individuals in both England and China adopted comparable strategies as a logical response to excesses of privilege and arbitrary power, with educated but non-noble persons taking advantage of print culture, a more literate population, an expanded art market, public spaces and other familiar 'early modern' developments to interrogate the system of inherited privilege and promote a more meritocratic society. This shared experience created common ground for transformative exchange between the two great traditions during the eighteenth century. By providing a more global account of what we call Western values, the book shows that early modern China and England had far more in common than is normally supposed, and thus challenges claims on the right and the left that the people of China lacked a concept of social justice and that China's cultural legacy should be treated as exceptional in regard to human rights.

Entangled Landscapes

Entangled Landscapes PDF Author: Yue Zhuang
Publisher: NUS Press
ISBN: 9814722588
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
The exchange of landscape practice between China and Europe from 1500–1800 is an important chapter in art history. While the material forms of the outcome of this exchange, like jardin anglo-chinoisand Européenerie are well documented, this book moves further to examine the role of the exchange in identity formation in early modern China and Europe. Proposing the new paradigm of “entangled landscapes”, drawing from the concept of “entangled histories”, this book looks at landscape design, cartography, literature, philosophy and material culture of the period. Challenging simplistic, binary treatments of the movements of “influences” between China and Europe, Entangled Landscapes reveals how landscape exchanges entailed complex processes of appropriation, crossover and transformation, through which Chinese and European identities were formed. Exploring these complex processes via three themes—empire building, mediators’ constraints, and aesthetic negotiations, this work breaks new ground in landscape and East-West studies. Interdisciplinary and revisionist in its thrust, it will also benefit scholars of history, human geography and postcolonial studies.

Taste and Knowledge in Early Modern England

Taste and Knowledge in Early Modern England PDF Author: Elizabeth L. Swann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108487653
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Pioneering investigation into relationship between physical sense of taste, and taste as a term denoting judgement, in early modern England.

The Political Bible in Early Modern England

The Political Bible in Early Modern England PDF Author: Kevin Killeen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107107970
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
This book explores the Bible as a political document in seventeenth-century England, revealing how it provided a key language of political debate.

Memory and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Early Modern England

Memory and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Early Modern England PDF Author: Harriet Lyon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316516407
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Explores the seismic impact of the dissolution of the monasteries, offering a new perspective on the English Reformation.

Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World

Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World PDF Author: Jack A. Goldstone
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520913752
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 644

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Book Description
What can the great crises of the past teach us about contemporary revolutions? Arguing from an exciting and original perspective, Goldstone suggests that great revolutions were the product of 'ecological crises' that occurred when inflexible political, economic, and social institutions were overwhelmed by the cumulative pressure of population growth on limited available resources. Moreover, he contends that the causes of the great revolutions of Europe—the English and French revolutions—were similar to those of the great rebellions of Asia, which shattered dynasties in Ottoman Turkey, China, and Japan. The author observes that revolutions and rebellions have more often produced a crushing state orthodoxy than liberal institutions, leading to the conclusion that perhaps it is vain to expect revolution to bring democracy and economic progress. Instead, contends Goldstone, the path to these goals must begin with respect for individual liberty rather than authoritarian movements of 'national liberation.' Arguing that the threat of revolution is still with us, Goldstone urges us to heed the lessons of the past. He sees in the United States a repetition of the behavior patterns that have led to internal decay and international decline in the past, a situation calling for new leadership and careful attention to the balance between our consumption and our resources. Meticulously researched, forcefully argued, and strikingly original, Revolutions and Rebellions in the Early Modern World is a tour de force by a brilliant young scholar. It is a book that will surely engender much discussion and debate.