Perspectives On Modern China

Chroniles the history of China since 1990, including the people and events that transformed a traditional empire into a modern world power.

Jean-Louis Rocca's admirably concise A Sociology of Modern China wears its scholarship lightly and paints an intimate and complex portrait of Chinese society, all the while avoiding clichés and simplifications. He delves into China's history and examines the country's many different social strata so as to better understand the enormous challenges and opportunities with which its people are confronted. After discussing the long march toward reform and the crises along the way - among them the 1989 protests which culminated in the events in Tiananmen Square and elsewhere - Rocca dedicates the second half of the book to the major questions facing the country (or, at the very least, its political elites) today: new forms of social stratification; the interaction between the market and the state; growing individualism; and the pressures exerted by social conflict and political change. In eschewing culturalist visions, Rocca thoroughly and successfully deconstructs received wisdom about Chinese society to reveal a thriving nation and its people.

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 events in modern Chinese history in the perspective of the rapid changes that were shaping the Chinese society, economy, polity, and sense of place in the world in the 1980s, a time when China was making rapid strides toward becoming more integrated with the outside world. With contributions by distinguished scholars in the field, the four anniversaries considered are the High Qing, the May Fourth Movement, forty years of communism in China, and ten years of the Deng era.

Calling for more cooperation between China and the west, this new book by noted author and educator Cary Krosinsky provides readers with an on-the-ground perspective of what’s really happening in China today on the back of its recent economic rise, its desire and need to solve environmental challenges and the new positive dynamic created by its need for foreign capital. In doing so, Krosinsky and his colleagues from the Sustainable Finance Institute and Brown University highlight how China has recaptured its role as a leader in innovation, arguing that current approaches to the relationship hinder global progress on issues such as climate change, inequality, air pollution, food integrity and water security and pushes back on confrontational approaches and attempts to clarify misperceptions about contemporary China. China’s recent rise includes becoming a global leader on green policy and green finance, as it is increasingly leading the way towards modernization through innovation strategies focused on infrastructure, education, healthcare and aspects of clean energy technology, leading to opportunities across private equity, venture capital and green bonds. This creates an exciting opportunity for positive change, with environmental challenges becoming more salient to its own population, adding pressure on the government to provide solutions. China changes faster than any country in the world, creating an opportunity for meaningful, ongoing, positive transitions. Modern China is a call for more cooperation, and makes a clear, cogent case for collaboration in the face of current confrontational approaches. At the same time, dire environmental and social circumstances require an all-hands-on-deck approach. This book provides specific examples of what’s working and what’s needed to compete and thrive in this new paradigm through trusted relationships placed front and center for the future of economies and the betterment of global society.

Klaus Mühlhahn situates modern China in the nation's long, dynamic tradition of overcoming adversity and weakness through creative adaptation--a legacy of crisis and recovery that is apparent today in China's triumphs but also in its most worrisome trends. Mühlhahn's panoramic survey rewrites the history of modern China for a new generation.

A collection of essays on architecture of modern China, arranged chronologically covering a period from 1729 to 2008, focusing mainly on the twentieth century. The distinctive feature of this book is a blending of ‘critical’ and ‘historical’ research, taking a long-range perspective transcending the current scene and the Maoist period. This is a short, elegant book that condenses the wide subject matter into key topics.

This path-breaking book argues that printing—both with woodblocks and with movable type—exerted a profound influence on Chinese society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.