Perspectives on Modern China: Four Anniversaries

by Joyce K. Kallgren, Joyce Kallgren, Roderick MacFarquhar

The conveners (the editors of this book) of the September 1989 Four Anniversaries China Conference in Annapolis, asked the contributors to look back from that point in time to consider four major... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0873328140
• ISBN13: 9780873328142
• Release Date: September 1991
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Outstanding book on Modern China, from the Qing to Deng

This collection of papers from a 1989 conference has lasting value. The papers cover the late Qing, the Republican Period, New Culture and May 4th years, the Mao era, and the first 10 years of Deng Xiaoping's reforms. The book is a must for any East Asian Studies or Modern Chinese History student.The contents are:"Emperors and the Chinese Political System" by Alexander Woodside "The Structure of the Chinese Economy During the Qing Period: Some Thoughts on the 150th Anniversary of the Opium War" by Madeleine Zelin "Models of Historical Change : the Chinese State and Society, 1839-1989" by Frederic Wakeman, Jr. "The Enlightenment Mentality and the Chinese Intellectual Dilemma" by Tu Wei-ming "The May Fourth Movement as a Historical Turning Point : Ecological Exhaustion, Militarization, and Other Causes of China's Modern Crisis" by Lloyd E. Eastman "The Social Agenda of May Fourth" by Evelyn S. Rawski "Modernity and its Discontents: The Cultural Agenda of the May Fourth Movement" by Leo Ou-fan Lee "The May Fourth era: China's Place in the World" by Michael H. Hunt "Powers of State, Paradoxes of Dominion: China 1949-1979" by Vivienne Shue "The Pattern and Legacy of Economic Growth in the Mao Era" by Barry Naughton "State and Society in the Mao Era" by Martin King Whyte "Chinese Communism in the Era of Mao Zedong, 1949-1976" by Thomas P. Bernstein "The Deng Era's Uncertain Political Legacy" by Michel Oksenberg "The Lasting Effect of China's Economic Reforms, 1979-1989" by Dwight H. Perkins "The Renegotiation of Chinese Cultural Identity in the post-Mao Era: An Anthropological Perspective" by James L. Watson "Reflections on the Opening of China" by James R. Townsend----------Woodside examines the basic norms and political culture of the imperial era, and how it influenced modern China's path, contrasting China and Europe along the way; while Wakeman describes the adaptation of political ideology to new situations over time.All the May 4th papers are excellent, but especially Lloyd Eastman's on the economic and environmental causes of the modernity crisis, which led to May 4th. His paper pairs nicely with Zelin's earlier examination of the Qing economy.Martin King Whyte's paper is especially good as well, comparing the imperial and Maoist states, and their relationship to society. The Maoist state is presented as realizing the imperial dream of total penetration of society, which was previously impossible due to technology and the weakness of the imperial state.Economists Naughton and Perkins give balanced accounts of Mao and Deng era economies. Vivienne Shue summarizes the controversial argument in her book _The Reach of the State_, which is, that the Maoist state was not able to penetrate the village and ensure obedience to its directives as thoroughly as it aspired to, that local leaders protected villagers to an extent, and the Dengist reforms accomplished this penetration more thoroughly. Thomas Bernstein has long been among the most