The politics of imagining Asia / Wang Hui ; edited by Theodore Huters.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wang, Hui.

Contributor:

Huters, Theodore.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Civilization, Modern.

Comparative civilization.

Historiography--Political aspects--East Asia.

Historiography.

East Asia--Civilization.

East Asia.

East Asia--Relations--Western countries.

Western countries--Relations--East Asia.

Western countries.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (369 p.)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this bold, provocative collection, Wang Hui confronts some of the major issues concerning modern China and the status quo of contemporary Chinese thought. The book's overarching theme is the possibility of an alternative modernity that does not rely on imported conceptions of Chinese history and its legacy. Wang Hui argues that current models, based largely on Western notions of empire and the nation-state, fail to account for the richness and diversity of pre-modern Chinese historical practice. At the same time, he refrains from offering an exclusively Chinese perspective and placing China in an intellectual ghetto. Navigating terrain on regional language and politics, he draws on China's unique past to expose the inadequacies of European-born standards for assessing modern China's evolution. He takes issue particularly with the way in which nation-state logic has dominated politically charged concerns like Chinese language standardization and "The Tibetan Question." His stance is critical - and often controversial - but he locates hope in the kinds of complex, multifaceted arrangements that defined China and much of Asia for centuries. The Politics of Imagining Asia challenges us not only to re-examine our theories of "Asia" but to reconsider what "Europe" means as well. As Theodore Huters writes in his introduction, "Wang Hui's concerns extend beyond China and Asia to an ambition to rethink world history as a whole."

Contents:

The politics of imagining Asia

How to explain "China" and its "modernity" : rethinking the rise of modern Chinese thought

Local forms, vernacular dialects, and the war of resistance against Japan : the "national forms" debate

The "Tibetan question" East and West : Orientalism, regional ethnic autonomy, and the politics of dignity

Okinawa and two dramatic changes to the regional order

Weber and the question of Chinese modernity.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [309]-345) and index.

ISBN:

9780674061354

0674061357

OCLC:

753974813