Serious study of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Chinese history did not really get under way in the United States until after World War II. Since then, scholarly publication has proliferated and a genuine professional field―by far the largest and most active in the West―has taken shape. Now, for the first time, we have a critical, book-length analysis of this development, written by an insider and structured around the leading conceptual approaches that have informed American scholarship in the postwar decades. In Paul A. Cohen's view, the supreme problem for American students of Chinese history, particularly in its post-Western impact phase, has been one of ethnocentric distortion. The first two chapters of the book explore this problem in connection with the two approaches that were most influential in American scholarship of the 1950s and 1960s―the impact-response and modernization (tradition-modernity) approaches. In chapter three, Dr. Cohen argues that a third major approach, the "imperialism" approach, although emerging in the late 1960s as a critique of the two earlier approaches, has been no less Western-centric in its basic presuppositions. The final chapter traces the increasing efforts of American historians to move beyond the Western-centric paradigms of the past toward a more China-centered approach to recent Chinese history―an approach that strives empathetically to reconstruct the Chinese past as the Chinese themselves experienced it rather than in terms of an imported sense of historical problem. Dr. Cohen concludes with a discussion of some of the implications of this new approach for our understanding of recent Chinese history. Students of Chinese history, Sino-American relations, and the evolution of American historical scholarship on non-Western societies will welcome this perceptive and thought-provoking book.

Discovering History in China

History

Paul A. Cohen

Asia

Columbia University Press

History in Three Keys juxtaposes the accounts of historians with those of participants and witnesses and sets these perspectives against the range of popular myths that were fashioned about the Boxers. The first part of the book tells the story of the Boxer uprising as reconstructed by historians. Part Two explores the thought, feelings, and behavior of the direct participants in the Boxer experience, individuals who, without a preconceived idea of the entire event, understood what was happening to them in a manner fundamentally different from historians. Finally, in Part Three, Cohen examines the myths surrounding the uprising in twentieth-century China - and, to a lesser extent, the West - as symbolic representations designed less to elucidate the Boxer past than to draw energy from it in the present.

History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth

A comprehensive look at the Boxer Rebellion of 1898-1900, a bloody uprising in north China against native Christians and foreign missionaries.

Taking Boxer Uprising as an example, History in Three Keys The Boxers as Event,Experience,and Myth explains 3 different ways to know history, i.e., 3 elements of history: event, experience and myth. Our aim is not to tell the history of Boxer Uprising but to discuss a series of problems related with historical writings Boxer Uprising is just a part of the whole .

History in Three Keys:the Boxers as Event,Experience,and Myth (Chinese Edition)

Social Science Academic Press

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

Books by Paul A. Cohen

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

Discovering History in China

History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth

History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth

History in Three Keys:the Boxers as Event,Experience,and Myth (Chinese Edition)