China and Other Matters

China and Other Matters PDF Author: Benjamin Isadore Schwartz
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674118621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
These writings, representing over a generation of work by one of our most acute commentators on Chinese history, are collected here for the first time and introduced with a masterly prologue. They cut across the boundaries of different fields of knowledge to better understand modern China and traditional Chinese culture. Schwartz's writings are deeply concerned with the conceptual frameworks and presumptions which we as twentieth-century Westerners bring to bear in our study of foreign cultures. He brings the entire complexity concerning modernity to his analysis of the millennial political, social, and cultural history of China. This is also an excavation of the conscious life of the Chinese past, an interpretation of the persistent dominant cultural and sociopolitical orientations of Chinese culture. The constancies of behavior and attitudes are made plain in the contingencies and complexities of short-durational and generational history.

China and Other Matters

China and Other Matters PDF Author: Benjamin Isadore Schwartz
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674118621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Get Book

Book Description
These writings, representing over a generation of work by one of our most acute commentators on Chinese history, are collected here for the first time and introduced with a masterly prologue. They cut across the boundaries of different fields of knowledge to better understand modern China and traditional Chinese culture. Schwartz's writings are deeply concerned with the conceptual frameworks and presumptions which we as twentieth-century Westerners bring to bear in our study of foreign cultures. He brings the entire complexity concerning modernity to his analysis of the millennial political, social, and cultural history of China. This is also an excavation of the conscious life of the Chinese past, an interpretation of the persistent dominant cultural and sociopolitical orientations of Chinese culture. The constancies of behavior and attitudes are made plain in the contingencies and complexities of short-durational and generational history.

Disgraceful Matters

Disgraceful Matters PDF Author: Janet Theiss
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520930667
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Looking beyond the familiar trappings of the cult of female chastity—such as hagiographies of widows and chastity shrines--in late imperial China, this book explores the cult's political significance and practical ramifications in everyday life during the eighteenth century. In the first full-length study of the subject, Janet Theiss examines a vast number of laws, legal cases, regulations, and policies to illustrate the social and political processes through which female virtue was defined, enforced, and contested. Along the way, she provides rich details of social life and cultural practices among ordinary Chinese people through narratives of criminal cases of sexual assault, harassment, adultery, and domestic violence.

The China Questions 2

The China Questions 2 PDF Author: Maria Adele Carrai
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674270339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
The China Questions 2 assembles top experts to explore key issues in US–China relations today, including conflict over Taiwan, economic and military competition, public health concerns, and areas of cooperation. Rejecting a new Cold War mindset, the authors call for dealing with the world’s most important bilateral relationship on its own terms.

The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800

The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800 PDF Author: David E. Mungello
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742538146
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
In the twenty-first century, China has emerged as the leading challenger to U.S. global dominance. China is often seen as a sleeping giant, emerging out of poverty, backwardness, and totalitarianism and moving toward modernization. However, history shows that this vast country is not newly awakening, but rather returning to its previous state of world eminence. With this compelling perspective in mind, D. E. Mungello convincingly shows that contemporary relations between China and the West are far more like the 1500-1800 period than the more recent past. This fully revised second edition retains the clear and concise qualities of its predecessor, while developing important new social and cultural themes such as gender, sexuality, music, and technology. Drawing from the author's thirty years of experience teaching world history, this book illustrates the importance of history to students and general readers trying to understand today's world.

Just Hierarchy

Just Hierarchy PDF Author: Daniel A. Bell
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691233985
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
A trenchant defense of hierarchy in different spheres of our lives, from the personal to the political All complex and large-scale societies are organized along certain hierarchies, but the concept of hierarchy has become almost taboo in the modern world. Just Hierarchy contends that this stigma is a mistake. In fact, as Daniel Bell and Wang Pei show, it is neither possible nor advisable to do away with social hierarchies. Drawing their arguments from Chinese thought and culture as well as other philosophies and traditions, Bell and Wang ask which forms of hierarchy are justified and how these can serve morally desirable goals. They look at ways of promoting just forms of hierarchy while minimizing the influence of unjust ones, such as those based on race, sex, or caste. Which hierarchical relations are morally justified and why? Bell and Wang argue that it depends on the nature of the social relation and context. Different hierarchical principles ought to govern different kinds of social relations: what justifies hierarchy among intimates is different from what justifies hierarchy among citizens, countries, humans and animals, and humans and intelligent machines. Morally justified hierarchies can and should govern different spheres of our social lives, though these will be very different from the unjust hierarchies that have governed us in the past. A vigorous, systematic defense of hierarchy in the modern world, Just Hierarchy examines how hierarchical social relations can have a useful purpose, not only in personal domains but also in larger political realms.

Fundamental Issues in Present-day China

Fundamental Issues in Present-day China PDF Author: 邓小平
Publisher:
ISBN: 9787119003450
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Collection of talks and speeches given between Sept. 1982 and June 1987.

Why China did not have a Renaissance – and why that matters

Why China did not have a Renaissance – and why that matters PDF Author: Thomas Maissen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110576392
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Concepts of historical progress or decline and the idea of a cycle of historical movement have existed in many civilizations. In spite of claims that they be transnational or even universal, periodization schemes invariably reveal specific social and cultural predispositions. Our dialogue, which brings together a Sinologist and a scholar of early modern History in Europe, considers periodization as a historical phenomenon, studying the case of the “Renaissance.” Understood in the tradition of J. Burckhardt, who referred back to ideas voiced by the humanists of the 14th and 15th centuries, and focusing on the particularities of humanist dialogue which informed the making of the “Renaissance” in Italy, our discussion highlights elements that distinguish it from other movements that have proclaimed themselves as “r/Renaissances,” studying, in particular, the Chinese Renaissance in the early 20th century. While disagreeing on several fundamental issues, we suggest that interdisciplinary and interregional dialogue is a format useful to addressing some of the more far-reaching questions in global history, e.g. whether and when a periodization scheme such as “Renaissance” can fruitfully be applied to describe non-European experiences.

The People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China PDF Author: Priscilla Robinson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781634855310
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
Human rights conditions in the People's Republic of China (PRC) remain a central issue in U.S.-China ties. Different perceptions of human rights are an underlying source of mutual misunderstanding and mistrust. Frictions on human rights issues affect other issues in the bilateral relationship, including those related to economics and security. China's weak rule of law and restrictions on information affect U.S. companies doing business in the PRC. People-to-people exchanges, particularly educational and academic ones, are often hampered by periodic Chinese government campaigns against "Western values." For many U.S. policymakers, human rights conditions in China represent a test of the success of overall U.S. policy toward the PRC. Some analysts contend that the U.S. policy of cultivating diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties with China has failed to promote meaningful political reform, and that without fundamental progress in this area, mutual trust and cooperation in other areas will remain difficult to achieve. The U.S. government has employed an array of efforts and tactics aimed at promoting democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in China, although their effects have been felt primarily along the margins of the PRC political system. Many analysts have observed that China's leaders have become less responsive to international pressure on human rights in recent years. This book examines human rights issues in the People's Republic of China (PRC), including ongoing rights abuses, and legal developments.

Looking for Chengdu

Looking for Chengdu PDF Author: Hill Gates
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501721623
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
For decades, anthropologist Hill Gates had waited for an opportunity to get to know the citizens of China as she had done in Taiwan—face to face, over an extended period of time. At last in the late 1980s she set out on an excursion to Sichuan Province. That visit was the first of many she would make there on a remarkable double adventure: to gain a deeper understanding of Chinese women and to complete a difficult passage in her own life. Looking for Chengdu is her memoir of these trips. By turns analytic, witty, and bittersweet, Gates's observations on contemporary China are enlivened by a keen eye for the oddities of human behavior, including her own.The vast, inland province of Sichuan was the birthplace of the Chinese economic reforms of the 1970s, and is now speeding from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. Was its economic boom transforming women's lives, Gates wondered? After a generation of socialist rule, would women risk the challenge of entrepreneurship? A feminist, she was especially curious to learn what Chinese of both sexes defined as women's rights.Gates traveled—by boat, train, bus, car, bicycle, and foot (her preference)—across the spectacular countryside, gleaning insight into China's massive bureaucracies from her experiences on an obligatory vacation, in a Tibetan dance-hall, and at a shouting match in her Chengdu home. She met dozens of hard-working, stylish women running family firms, and crossed paths with scholars and sailors. Her book is rich in anecdotes and compelling moments, from her journey through mountain villages in search of five thousand women with bound feet to low-voiced conversations about the Chengdu equivalent of the events at Tiananmen Square.A fascinating glimpse into the deeply personal vocation of anthropology, Gates's memoir will change the way readers think about the Chinese people.

Does China Matter?

Does China Matter? PDF Author: Barry Buzan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134409680
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Gerald Segal’s last published paper ‘Does China Matter?’ made a considerable splash, and had he lived, it is certain that he would have followed it up with a book. This new volume honours his memory and takes forward his project, bringing together ten leading writers on China to reassess his argument. This book opens with an detailed assessment of Dr Segal’s contribution, and a reprint of the article. The rest of the chapters address the question of ‘does China matter?’ by focusing separately on both the global and Asian dimensions of China’s presence, and on the military, political, economic and cultural aspects of its capabilities and activities. They provide an extension and critique of Segal’s work in the context of an authoritative up-to-date and forward looking evaluation of China’s prospects. Segal’s question remains central to world politics. This essential book sets out a detailed case for exactly how, why and to whom China matters.