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China's Quest for Modernization

A Historical Perspective
by Frederic Wakeman (Editor), Xi Wang (Editor)
Paperback eBook
Price: $32.00 / £27.00
Publication Date: Jan 1997
Publisher:
Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Imprint: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 408
ISBN: 9781557290571
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Series:
  • Research Papers and Policy Studies
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About the Book

The seventeen essays collected here, written by Chinese and U.S. scholars, explore the reasons for China's historical failure to modernize and develop recommendations on the path China should follow in its current quest for modernization. The book opens with a general review and then moves into economic, political and social, cultural, foreign relations, population, comparative, and regional studies.

About the Author

Frederic Wakeman Jr. (1937–2006) was Walter and Elise Haas Professor of Asian Studies and director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Education: B.A. Harvard University, Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley

Wang Xi is professor of history and economics, Fudan University.

Table of Contents

Preface 

1. Approaches to the study of modern Chinese history: external versus internal causations
    Wang Xi

2. Middle county radicalism: the May Fourth Movement in Hangzhou 
    Wen-Hsin Yeh

3. Evolution of modern Chinese society from the perspective of population changes, 1840-1949 
    Zhang Kaimin

4. Historical demography in late imperial China: recent research results and implications
    James Lee

5. Modernization and the structure of the Chinese economy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries 
    Madeleine Zelin

6. New approach to China's century of great transformation, 1840s-1940s 
    Luo Rongqu

7. Western learning and social transmutation in the late Qing 
    Chen Jiang

8. Dowager Empress Cixi and Toshmichi: a comparative study of modernization in China and Japan 
    Ding Richu

9. Political parties, party conflicts, and society in early Republican China 
    Yang Liqiang

10. Intercultural connections and Chinese development: external and internal spheres of modern China's foreign relations 
    William C. Kirby

11. Emergence and development of China's modern capitalist enterprises 
    Zhang Guohui

12. Popular protest and political progress in modern China 
    Elizabeth J. Perry

13. Power structure and modernization policies in twentieth-century China 
    Marie-Claire Bergère –

14. Influence of Shanghai's modernization on the economy of the Yangzi Valley 
    Zhang Zhongli and Pan Junxiang –

15. State and civil society in the history of Chinese modernity 
    Prasenjit Duara

16. Civil society in late imperial and modern China 
    Frederic Wakeman, Jr.

17. Issues in the evolution of modern China in East Asian comparative perspective 
    Joshua A. Fogel.

Contributors 

Reviews

"This collection of papers from a conference held at Fudan University in Shanghai in 1992 is praiseworthy for two reasons. The first is the simple fact that the conference was held less than three years after the Tiananmen crisis….The second praiseworthy feature is the excellent quality of some of the chapters. Despite the absence of a single thematic argument, several strong lines of discussion emerge from the book, and these are ably highlighted by Frederic Wakeman.... This well-produced book will be of use to scholars and advanced students alike."—Peter Harris, Victoria University, New Zealand, The China Journal 43, (January 2000): 217-219.

"Based on a conference held in Shanghai in 1992, this collection of essays brings together an impressive group of Chinese and American scholars to reconsider some of the major issues in modem Chinese history....[T]he volume generally focuses on three broad themes: the interaction between China and the West, long-term secular trends in Chinese society, and state-society relations....Overall, this collection of essays is essential reading for all specialists and will provide much grist for graduate seminars and upper class history courses alike."—Joseph Fewsmith, The China Quarterly, no. 150 (September 1999): 735-736

“For anyone who is interested in current discussions of China’s modernization, this volume is essential reading. It offers a wide variety of opinions to interpret China’s modernization and the policies of the current Chinese government.”—Tze-Ki Hon, State University of New York, Journal of Asian and African Studies 33, no. 4 (November 1998): 388-389.