An Analysis of David C. Kang's China Rising

An Analysis of David C. Kang's China Rising PDF Author: Matteo Dian
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351350285
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 97

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Book Description
A critical analysis of David C. Kang’s China Rising, which is a fine example of an author making use of creative thinking skills to reach a conclusion that flies in the face of traditional thinking. The conventional view that the book opposed, known in international relations as ‘realism,’ was that the rise of any new global power results in global or regional instability. As such, China’s development as a world economic powerhouse worried mainstream western geopolitical scholars, whose concerns were based on the realist assumption that individual countries will inevitably compete for dominance. Evaluating these arguments, and finding both their relevance and adequacy wanting, Kang instead turned traditional thinking on its head by looking at Asian history without preconceptions, and with analytical open-mindedness. Producing several novel explanations for existing evidence, Kang concludes that China’s neighbors do not want to compete with it in the way that realist interpretations predict. Rather than creating instability by jockeying for position, he argues, surrounding countries are happy for China to be acknowledged as a leader, believing that its dominant position will stabilize Asia, and give the whole region more of a hand in international relations. Though critics have taken issue with Kang’s conclusions, his paradigm-shifting approach is nevertheless an excellent example of developing fresh new conclusions through creative thinking.

An Analysis of David C. Kang's China Rising

An Analysis of David C. Kang's China Rising PDF Author: Matteo Dian
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351350285
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 97

Get Book Here

Book Description
A critical analysis of David C. Kang’s China Rising, which is a fine example of an author making use of creative thinking skills to reach a conclusion that flies in the face of traditional thinking. The conventional view that the book opposed, known in international relations as ‘realism,’ was that the rise of any new global power results in global or regional instability. As such, China’s development as a world economic powerhouse worried mainstream western geopolitical scholars, whose concerns were based on the realist assumption that individual countries will inevitably compete for dominance. Evaluating these arguments, and finding both their relevance and adequacy wanting, Kang instead turned traditional thinking on its head by looking at Asian history without preconceptions, and with analytical open-mindedness. Producing several novel explanations for existing evidence, Kang concludes that China’s neighbors do not want to compete with it in the way that realist interpretations predict. Rather than creating instability by jockeying for position, he argues, surrounding countries are happy for China to be acknowledged as a leader, believing that its dominant position will stabilize Asia, and give the whole region more of a hand in international relations. Though critics have taken issue with Kang’s conclusions, his paradigm-shifting approach is nevertheless an excellent example of developing fresh new conclusions through creative thinking.

China Rising

China Rising PDF Author: David C. Kang
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231141890
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
Over the past three decades, China has rapidly emerged as a major regional power, yet East Asia has been more peaceful than at any time since the Opium Wars of 1839-1841. Why has the region accommodated China's rise? David C. Kang believes certain preferences and beliefs are responsible for maintaining stability in East Asia. His research shows that East Asian states have grown closer to China, with little evidence that the region is rupturing. These states see China's rise as advantageous and are willing to defer judgment as to China's wishes and future actions. They believe that a strong China stabilizes East Asia, while a weak China tempts other states to seek control of the region. Kang's provocative work reveals the flaws in contemporary views on China and offers a new understanding of sound U.S. policy in East Asia.

An Analysis of Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down

An Analysis of Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down PDF Author: Harman Bhogal
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351353500
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
Few works of history have succeeded so completely in forcing their readers to take a fresh look at the evidence as Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down – and that achievement is rooted firmly in Hill's exceptional problem-solving skills. Traditional interpretations of the English Civil War concentrated heavily on a top-down analysis of the doings of king and parliament. Hill looked at ‘history from below,’ focusing instead on the ways in which the people of Britain saw the society they lived in and nurtured hopes for a better future. Failing to understand these factors – and the impact they had on the origins and outcomes of the wars of the 1640s – means failing to understand the historical period. In this sense, Hill's influential work is a great example of the problem-solving skills of asking productive questions and generating alternative possibilities. It forced a generation of historians to re-evaluate the things they thought they knew about a key pivot point in British history – and went on to influence the generations that came after them.

An Analysis of C.L.R. James's The Black Jacobins

An Analysis of C.L.R. James's The Black Jacobins PDF Author: Nick Broten
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351352970
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 103

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Book Description
Today we take it for granted that history is much more than the story of great men and the elites from which they spring. Other forms of history – the histories of gender, class, rebellion and nonconformity – add much-needed context and color to our understanding of the past. But this has not always been so. In CLR James’s The Black Jacobins, we have one of the earliest, and most defining, examples of how ‘history from below’ ought to be written. James's approach is based on his need to resolve two central problems: to understand why the Haitian slave revolt was the only example of a successful slave rebellion in history, and also to grasp the ways in which its history was intertwined with the history of the French Revolution. The book's originality, and its value, rests on its author's ability to ask and answer productive questions of this sort, and in the creativity with which he proved able to generate new hypotheses as a result. As any enduring work of history must be, The Black Jacobins is rooted in sound archival research – but its true greatness lies in the originality of James's approach.

An Analysis of James March's Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning

An Analysis of James March's Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning PDF Author: Pádraig Belton
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 0429939914
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 107

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Book Description
Exploration and Exploitation is a key text for scholars and business practitioners interested in promoting economic well-being and sustainable growth. March’s work promotes the preservation of companies’ competitiveness and sustainability in the fluctuating market environment by maintaining a balance between exploration and exploitation processes. He explicates that this balance depends on the interchange between the adaptive capability of the company, predictability and consistency, competition, anticipations, level of risk, learning, socialization dynamics within the organization, and the overall environmental turbulence. These intricacies make March’s text invaluable.

An Analysis of Robert O. Keohane's After Hegemony

An Analysis of Robert O. Keohane's After Hegemony PDF Author: Ramon Pacheco Pardo
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351351907
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 77

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Book Description
Robert O. Keohane’s After Hegemony is both a classic of international relations scholarship and an example of how creative thinking can help shed new light on the world. Since the end of World War II, the global political landscape had been dominated by two superpowers, the USA and the USSR, and the tense stand-off of the Cold War. But, as the Cold War began to thaw, it became clear that a new global model might emerge. The commonly held belief amongst those studying international relations was that it was impossible for nations to work together without the influence of a hegemon (a dominant international power) to act as both referee and ultimate decision-maker. This paradigm – neorealism – worked on the basis that every nation will do all it can to maximize its power, with such processes only checked by a balance of competing powers. Keohane, however, examined the evidence afresh and came up with novel explanations for what was likely to come next. He went outside the dominant paradigm, and argued for what came to be known as the neoliberal conception of international politics. States, Keohane said, can and will cooperate without the influence of a hegemonic power, so long as doing so brings them absolute gains in the shape of economic and cultural benefits. In Keohane’s highly-creative view, the pursuit of national self-interest leads naturally to international cooperation – and to the formation of global regimes (such as the United Nations) that can reinforce and foster it.

An Analysis of Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition

An Analysis of Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition PDF Author: Sahar Aurore Saeidnia
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351353152
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description
Hannah Arendt’s 1958 The Human Condition was an impassioned philosophical reconsideration of the goals of being human. In its arguments about the kind of lives we should lead and the political engagement we should strive for, Arendt’s interpretative skills come to the fore, in a brilliant display of what high-level interpretation can achieve for critical thinking. Good interpretative thinkers are characterised by their ability to clarify meanings, question accepted definitions and posit good, clear definitions that allow their other critical thinking skills to take arguments deeper and further than most. In many ways, The Human Condition is all about definitions. Arendt’s aim is to lay out an argument for political engagement and active participation in society as the highest goals of human life; and to this end she sets about defining a hierarchy of ways of living a “vita activa,” or active life. The book sets about distinguishing between our different activities under the categories of “labor”, “work”, and “action” – each of which Arendt carefully redefines as a different level of active engagement with the world. Following her clear and careful laying out of each word’s meaning, it becomes hard to deny her argument for the life of “action” as the highest human goal.

An Analysis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract

An Analysis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract PDF Author: James Hill
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351353446
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description
Few people can claim to have had minds as fertile and creative as the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. One of the most influential political theorists of the modern age, he was also a composer and writer of opera, a novelist, and a memoirist whose Confessions ranks as one of the most striking works of autobiography ever written. Like many creative thinkers, Rousseau was someone whose restless mind could not help questioning accepted orthodoxies and looking at matters from novel and innovative angles. His 1762 treatise The Social Contract does exactly that. Examining the nature and sources of legitimate political power, it crafted a closely reasoned and passionately persuasive argument for democracy at a time when the most widely accepted form of government was absolute monarchy, legitimised by religious beliefs about the divine right of kings and queens to rule. In France, the book was banned by worried Catholic censors; in Rousseau’s native Geneva, it was both banned and burned. But history soon pushed Rousseau’s ideas into the mainstream of political theory, with the French and American revolutions paving the way for democratic government to gain ground across the Western world. Though it was precisely what got Rousseau’s book banned at the time, the novel idea that all legitimate government rests on the will of the people is now recognised as the core principle of democratic freedom and represents, for many people, the highest of ideals.

An Analysis of Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War

An Analysis of Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War PDF Author: Mark Fisher
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351353144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 79

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Book Description
Few works can claim to form the foundation stones of one entire academic discipline, let alone two, but Thucydides's celebrated History of the Peloponnesian War is not only one of the first great works of history, but also the departure point from which the modern discipline of international relations has been built. This is the case largely because the author is a master of analysis; setting out with the aim of giving a clear, well-reasoned account of one of the seminal events of the age – a war that resulted in the collapse of Athenian power and the rise of Sparta – Thucydides took care to build a single, beautifully-structured argument that was faithful to chronology and took remarkably few liberties with the source materials. He avoided the sort of assumptions that make earlier works frustrating for modern scholars, for example seeking reasons for outcomes that were rooted in human actions and agency, not in the will of the gods. And he was careful to explain where he had obtained much of his information. As a work of structure – and as a work of reasoning – The History of the Peloponnesian War continues to inspire, be read and be taught more than 2,000 years after it was written.

An Analysis of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America

An Analysis of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America PDF Author: Elizabeth Morrow
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351352180
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description
Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1838 Democracy in America is a classic of political theory – and of the problem-solving skills central to putting forward political ideas. Problem-solving has several aspects: identifying problems, finding methodologies to deal with them, and applying the right criteria to work out how to solve them. Indeed, offering solutions is only the last stage in a developed process of problem solving. For Tocqueville, the problem at hand was how best to run a democratic state. In the early 19th century, it seemed clear that Europe was headed in the direction of democracy, but in the wake of the French Revolution, it was unclear how to avoid the many pitfalls on that road. Tocqueville therefore turned to America, then point the most established democracy in the world, to investigate the institutions that allowed it to run as a successful state – allowing people their say while preventing both the possible “tyranny of the majority” and the uncontrolled growth of government. Tocqueville’s careful analysis of the strengths of American democracy was then applied to the problems of instituting democracy in France, providing a range of solutions that proved deeply influential in European political thought.