Comparing Civilizations: China and the West: A Sourcebook

This book provides a powerful one-stop tool for understanding China as a civilization comparable to that of the West. Sinologist Roger Ames says of this unique sourcebook of readings, selected from the last 3000 years or so to represent both civilizations: "As the world undergoes a massive and accelerating sea change in its economic, political, and cultural orders, Blair and McCormack have provided the academy with an effective multimedia engine for pursuing responsible cultural comparisons between the Chinese and Western narratives. If, as Joseph Needham would claim, productive correlations provide us with our human reservoir of wisdom, then this teaching compendium of broad yet nuanced comparisons promises our students of Chinese and Western civilization a much enhanced literacy on each other's cultural achievements." To enable a genuinely comparative approach, the authors adopt a topical rather than a chronological organization. Dominant views of the world, Western and Chinese, traditional and modern, are assessed under six categories: Learning (in and out of school), Humans in Families, Defining Humans (bodies and selves), Humans and their Surroundings (economics vs. ecology), Humans and Authority, Values and Worldviews. For teaching purposes, these readings are organized as modules. Texts originally in Chinese appear in both languages, hence are useful for students of either language. Besides its 622 printed pages of main readings, this book also contains on CD-ROM all 1680 pages in PDF format designed for on-screen reading. PDF enriches the CD with all-word searches, clickable links, images in color, and self-saved comments and highlights so readers can evolve a unique personal version of the master text. This book is ideal for Western readers who seek to understand where the new, rising China is coming from in the world of today.