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China: Inventing the Nation
With Chinese nationalism a vital ingredient of both the domestic politics of the People's Republic of China and its international relations, this book explores how China came to be a nation, arguing that from early times China had all the features of a nation state- a common language, culture, and bureaucracy- and that China as it exists today was invented through the construction of a modern state.
The book describes the attitudes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Chinese towards identity and ethnicity and how these factors affected the structure of the state. The Chinese efforts to build a modern nation state that could resist the Western imperial powers are also documented as are the efforts in the twentieth century to spread nationalism from the cities into rural China.
The book argues that China has not been an exception to the process of the invention of nations. Instead, its differences arise from the complexities of the relationship between nationalism and imperialism. Moreover, the role of imperialism was not limited to Western empires: the Manchu Qing empire played quite as significant a role in the construction of the modern Chinese nation state as did imported European ideologies.
The book describes the attitudes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Chinese towards identity and ethnicity and how these factors affected the structure of the state. The Chinese efforts to build a modern nation state that could resist the Western imperial powers are also documented as are the efforts in the twentieth century to spread nationalism from the cities into rural China.
The book argues that China has not been an exception to the process of the invention of nations. Instead, its differences arise from the complexities of the relationship between nationalism and imperialism. Moreover, the role of imperialism was not limited to Western empires: the Manchu Qing empire played quite as significant a role in the construction of the modern Chinese nation state as did imported European ideologies.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionChina
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
2 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
About the author
Henrietta Harrison
11 books17 followersLibrarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
From: http://www.orinst.ox.ac.uk/staff/ea/c...
"I am a historian and my main interest is in what ordinary people’s lives have been like in China from the Qing dynasty until today. I am also enthusiastic about writing the kind of history that tells stories as well as making arguments. Both of my most recent books have been micro-histories and I have made extensive use of fieldwork in China, especially conducting oral history interviews and collecting village-level materials, as well as using more conventional archives and libraries.
My research has included the 1911 revolution, nationalism, Confucianism in the twentieth-century, Catholicism, interactions between China and Europe, and above all the history of Shanxi province. I have worked across different periods, writing two books about the early twentieth century, and one that is the story of a single village from 1700 to 2012, as well as several articles about the 1950s and 60s. My main current research is on the eighteenth century, with a focus on diplomacy and the social history of oral interpreting."
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
From: http://www.orinst.ox.ac.uk/staff/ea/c...
"I am a historian and my main interest is in what ordinary people’s lives have been like in China from the Qing dynasty until today. I am also enthusiastic about writing the kind of history that tells stories as well as making arguments. Both of my most recent books have been micro-histories and I have made extensive use of fieldwork in China, especially conducting oral history interviews and collecting village-level materials, as well as using more conventional archives and libraries.
My research has included the 1911 revolution, nationalism, Confucianism in the twentieth-century, Catholicism, interactions between China and Europe, and above all the history of Shanxi province. I have worked across different periods, writing two books about the early twentieth century, and one that is the story of a single village from 1700 to 2012, as well as several articles about the 1950s and 60s. My main current research is on the eighteenth century, with a focus on diplomacy and the social history of oral interpreting."
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 23, 2023
Väldigt bra och genomgående verk om uppkomsten och naturen av Kinas nationella medvetande
January 19, 2021
En bra genomgång av nationalism och identitet i Kina från 1600 talet och framåt. Eftersom detta är kurslitteratur för min del har jag inte kunnat läsa alla delar noga men även om man skummar igenom får man ett sammanhang.
July 17, 2014
I picked up this book in a university discount rack for $2.50. I hadn't heard of the author or the press so I didn't expect much. However, I was really impressed by the study and enjoyed it. The author tackles a very convoluted subject that many others have already spilt much ink on, yet ties it together in a way that makes the book both readable in its breadth and strong in its arguments. The book focuses on nationalism as a relationship between the elite, common people, and greater political events. We are shown how escalating political crises punctuate escalating senses of group consciousness and work to create even greater networks of national self-identification. During the 19th century, each battle with European powers and Japan created a new urgency to either modernize or expel foreign influence, two desires that were increasingly informed by thinking of China as a cohesive unit along contemporary nation-state forms. The eventual revolutionaries of 1911 were educated in western style schools and had been heavily influenced by the example of Japan. Spencerian thinking informed their anti-Manchuism and German constitutionalism informed early attempts at setting up a new republic.
A strength of the book is its display of both continuities and ruptures, rather than privileging one over another. We see the continuation of culturalist thinking, even as nationalist modernizers attempt to dispose of it forever. Subsequent governments would attempt to leverage the very aspects of Chinese culture they had disparaged at later dates when they thought it would help them shore up power. See the near deification of Sun Yatsen during the Nationalist period and of Mao in his day, and, it a reduced but curious way, Deng Xiaoping in the current period. The discussions of schools, hair, foot binding, and bodily disposition, and the inter-generational conflicts their reform set off were perhaps the most memorable parts of the book.
The book starts to lag when the Communist period begins, and the social-historical dimension takes on more strongly the frame of "cultural diffusion" rather than the substance. All along the author uses the commonly found explanation of the elite or middle class as an exemplar of some trend. This class becomes a model for whomever is below it and, with the rise of transportation and communications technology, a way of thought - in this case nationalism - is spread. This argument works stronger earlier in the book when the modernizing communities are restricted to port regions and relatively small in size to the rest of the population. The author provides great examples of the frustrations of elites and the aspiring educated class as they grapple with the new ideas and institutions of the countries threatening them.
However, the argument is less convincing in the Communist period because now the who country is to be brought into ideas of national identity. At this point the "cultural diffusion" model that often appears convincing in such histories of modernization seems problematic. In my view, the author downplays the roles of political ideology and simple political oppression in creating a new identity.
A strength of the book is its display of both continuities and ruptures, rather than privileging one over another. We see the continuation of culturalist thinking, even as nationalist modernizers attempt to dispose of it forever. Subsequent governments would attempt to leverage the very aspects of Chinese culture they had disparaged at later dates when they thought it would help them shore up power. See the near deification of Sun Yatsen during the Nationalist period and of Mao in his day, and, it a reduced but curious way, Deng Xiaoping in the current period. The discussions of schools, hair, foot binding, and bodily disposition, and the inter-generational conflicts their reform set off were perhaps the most memorable parts of the book.
The book starts to lag when the Communist period begins, and the social-historical dimension takes on more strongly the frame of "cultural diffusion" rather than the substance. All along the author uses the commonly found explanation of the elite or middle class as an exemplar of some trend. This class becomes a model for whomever is below it and, with the rise of transportation and communications technology, a way of thought - in this case nationalism - is spread. This argument works stronger earlier in the book when the modernizing communities are restricted to port regions and relatively small in size to the rest of the population. The author provides great examples of the frustrations of elites and the aspiring educated class as they grapple with the new ideas and institutions of the countries threatening them.
However, the argument is less convincing in the Communist period because now the who country is to be brought into ideas of national identity. At this point the "cultural diffusion" model that often appears convincing in such histories of modernization seems problematic. In my view, the author downplays the roles of political ideology and simple political oppression in creating a new identity.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews