China's sense of today and its view of tomorrow are both rooted in the past--and we need to understand that connection, says China scholar Charles Horner. In Rising China and Its Postmodern Fate, Horner offers a new interpretation of how China's changed view of its modern historical experience has also changed China's understanding of its long intellectual and cultural tradition. Spirited reevaluations of history, strategy, commerce, and literature are cooperating--and competing--to define the future.The capstone of modern China was the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 and its rejection of Confucianism, capitalism, and modernity. Yet today's rising China retains few vestiges of what Mao wrought. What then, Horner asks, is post-Mao, postmodern China? Where did it come from? How did it get here? Where is it going?Contemporary views of the great periods in Chinese history are having a significant influence on the development of rising China's national strategy, says Horner. He looks at the revival of interest in, and changing interpretations of, three dynasties--the Yuan (1280-1368), the Ming (1368-1644), and the Qing (1644-1912)--that, together with the People's Republic of China, provide examples of great power success. The future of every major country is now connected to China's, and this book explains how China, now seeing itself as the complex and thriving result of the old and the new, is poised to change the world.
Author(s): Charles Horner
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 232
Cover
......Page 1
Rising China and its postmodern fate......Page 6
Copyright
......Page 7
Contents......Page 10
Acknowledgments......Page 12
A Note on Romanization and the Pronunciation of Chinese......Page 14
Prologue......Page 18
CHAPTER 1 A Memory of Empire: The New Past of Old China......Page 32
CHAPTER 2 The Yuan Dynasty and the Pax Mongolica......Page 39
CHAPTER 3 The Ming Dynasty and the Pax Sinica......Page 51
CHAPTER 4 The Qing Dynasty and the Pax Manjurica......Page 71
CHAPTER 5 The Proletarian Dynasty of Chairman Mao......Page 102
CHAPTER 6 The History of the World as China’s Own......Page 116
CHAPTER 7 China’s Continent and the World City......Page 126
CHAPTER 8 A Peaceful Rise and Memories of Violence......Page 162
CHAPTER 9 The Strange Death of the Soviet Empire......Page 174
CHAPTER 10 “The Chinese People Are a Heap of Loose Sand”......Page 183
CHAPTER 11 Rising China’s Grand Design......Page 200
Epilogue......Page 210
Notes......Page 216
Bibliography......Page 224
C......Page 232
D......Page 233
H......Page 234
K......Page 235
M......Page 236
P......Page 237
S......Page 238
T......Page 239
X......Page 240
Z......Page 241
