Ge Zhaoguang, an eminent historian of traditional China and a public intellectual, takes on fundamental questions that shape the domestic and international politics of the world’s most populous country and its second largest economy. What Is China? offers an insider’s account that addresses sensitive problems of Chinese identity and shows how modern scholarship about China―whether conducted in China, East Asia, or the West―has attempted to make sense of the country’s shifting territorial boundaries and its diversity of ethnic groups and cultures.
Ge considers, for example, the ancient concept of tianxia, or All-Under-Heaven, which assigned supremacy to the imperial court and lesser status to officials, citizens, tributary states, and tribal peoples. Does China’s government still operate with a belief in divine rule of All-Under-Heaven, or has it taken a different view of other actors, inside and outside its current borders? Responding both to Western theories of the nation-state and to Chinese intellectuals eager to promote “national learning,” Ge offers an insightful and erudite account of how China sees its place in the world. As he wrestles with complex historical and cultural forces guiding the inner workings of an often misunderstood nation, Ge also teases out many nuances of China’s encounter with the contemporary world, using China’s past to explain aspects of its present and to provide insight into various paths the nation might follow as the twenty-first century unfolds.

What Is China?: Territory, Ethnicity, Culture, and History

History

Ge, Zhaoguang

Asia

Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press

Qi shi ji qian Zhongguo di zhi shi, si xiang yu xin yang shi jie (Zhongguo si xiang shi) (Mandarin Chinese Edition)

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Fa xing Xin hua shu dian Shanghai fa xing suo

Winner of the 2014 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award In An Intellectual History of China, Professor Ge Zhaoguang presents a history of traditional Chinese knowledge, thought and belief to the late six century CE with a new approach offering a new perspective. It appropriates a wide range of source materials and emphasizes the necessity of understanding ideas and thought in their proper historical contexts. Its analytical narrative focuses on the dialectical interaction between historical background and intellectual thought. While discussing the complex dynamics of interaction among the intellectual thought of elite Chinese scholars, their historical conditions, their canonical texts and the "worlds of general knowledge, thought and belief," it also illuminates the significance of key issues such as the formation of the Chinese world order and its underlying value system, the origins of Chinese cultural identity and foreign influences.

An Intellectual History of China: Knowledge, Thought, and Belief Before the Seventh Century CE

Brill Academic Pub

"Here in 'China' I Dwell is a historiographical account of the formation of Chinese historical narratives in light of outside pressures on China--the view from China's borders. There is a special discussion of the influence of Japanese historians on the concept of China and its borders, including the nature of their sources, cultural and religious and more. In Ge's comparative account, a new portrait of Chinese historical narratives, along with the views and assumptions implicit in these narratives, emerges in the context of East Asia, a similarly constructed concept with its own multitudes of frontiers and peoples"--Provided by publisher.

Here in 'China' I Dwell: Reconstructing Historical Discourses of China for Our Time (Brill's Humanities in China Library, 10)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ge, Zhaoguang. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ge, Zhaoguang