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The Immobile Empire
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Book Synopsis The Immobile Empire by : Alain Peyrefitte
Download or read book The Immobile Empire written by Alain Peyrefitte and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-05-21 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1793, Lord George Macartney and an enormous delegation—including diplomats, doctors, scholars, painters, musicians, soldiers, and aristocrats—entered Beijing on a mission to open China to British trade. But Macartney’s famous refusal to perform the traditional kowtow before the Chinese Emperor was just one sign that the two empires would not see eye to eye, and the trade talks failed. The inability to develop a trade relation would have enormous consequences for future relations between China and the West. Peyrefitte’s vivid narrative of this fascinating encounter is based on extraordinary source materials from each side—including the charming and candid diary of Thomas Staunton, the son of one of Macartney’s aides. An example of history at its finest, The Immobile Empire recaptures the extraordinary experience of two great empires in collision, sizing each other up for the first time.
Download or read book China written by Eileen Tamura and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China: Understanding Its Past aims to fill a conspicuous gap in conventional world history texts, which are often Eurocentric and give scant attention to Asia. Using role-playing, simulations, debates, primary documents, first person accounts, excerpts from literary works, and cooperative learning activities, this text will help students explore many key aspects of China's history and culture. The teacher's manual includes a synopsis of each chapter and section, learner outcomes, definitions of key concepts, directions for student activities, and possible responses to questions posed in the student text. The CD contains selections of Chinese music from different time periods and locales. Liner notes include English translations of lyrics as well as historical information about each selection.
Book Synopsis Quest for Status by : Deborah Welch Larson
Download or read book Quest for Status written by Deborah Welch Larson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at how the desire to improve international status affects Russia's and China's foreign policies Deborah Welch Larson and Alexei Shevchenko argue that the desire for world status plays a key role in shaping the foreign policies of China and Russia. Applying social identity theory—the idea that individuals derive part of their identity from larger communities—to nations, they contend that China and Russia have used various modes of emulation, competition, and creativity to gain recognition from other countries and thus validate their respective identities. To make this argument, they analyze numerous cases, including Catherine the Great’s attempts to westernize Russia, China’s identity crises in the nineteenth century, and both countries’ responses to the end of the Cold War. The authors employ a multifaceted method of measuring status, factoring in influence and inclusion in multinational organizations, military clout, and cultural sway, among other considerations. Combined with historical precedent, this socio-psychological approach helps explain current trends in Russian and Chinese foreign policy.
Book Synopsis Restless Empire by : Odd Arne Westad
Download or read book Restless Empire written by Odd Arne Westad and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2012-08-28 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the twenty-first century dawns, China stands at a crossroads. The largest and most populous country on earth and currently the world's second biggest economy, China has recently reclaimed its historic place at the center of global affairs after decades of internal chaos and disastrous foreign relations. But even as China tentatively reengages with the outside world, the contradictions of its development risks pushing it back into an era of insularity and instability—a regression that, as China's recent history shows, would have serious implications for all other nations. In Restless Empire, award-winning historian Odd Arne Westad traces China's complex foreign affairs over the past 250 years, identifying the forces that will determine the country's path in the decades to come. Since the height of the Qing Empire in the eighteenth century, China's interactions—and confrontations—with foreign powers have caused its worldview to fluctuate wildly between extremes of dominance and subjugation, emulation and defiance. From the invasion of Burma in the 1760s to the Boxer Rebellion in the early 20th century to the 2001 standoff over a downed U.S. spy plane, many of these encounters have left Chinese with a lingering sense of humiliation and resentment, and inflamed their notions of justice, hierarchy, and Chinese centrality in world affairs. Recently, China's rising influence on the world stage has shown what the country stands to gain from international cooperation and openness. But as Westad shows, the nation's success will ultimately hinge on its ability to engage with potential international partners while simultaneously safeguarding its own strength and stability. An in-depth study by one of our most respected authorities on international relations and contemporary East Asian history, Restless Empire is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the recent past and probable future of this dynamic and complex nation.
Download or read book Empire written by Jeremy Paxman and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2011-10-06 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of The English comes Empire, Jeremy Paxman's history of the British Empire accompanied by a flagship 5-part BBC TV series, for readers of Simon Schama and Andrew Marr. The influence of the British Empire is everywhere, from the very existence of the United Kingdom to the ethnic composition of our cities. It affects everything, from Prime Ministers' decisions to send troops to war to the adventurers we admire. From the sports we think we're good at to the architecture of our buildings; the way we travel to the way we trade; the hopeless losers we will on, and the food we hunger for, the empire is never very far away. In this acute and witty analysis, Jeremy Paxman goes to the very heart of empire. As he describes the selection process for colonial officers ('intended to weed out the cad, the feeble and the too clever') the importance of sport, the sweating domestic life of the colonial officer's wife ('the challenge with cooking meat was "to grasp the fleeting moment between toughness and putrefaction when the joint may possibly prove eatable"') and the crazed end for General Gordon of Khartoum, Paxman brings brilliantly to life the tragedy and comedy of Empire and reveals its profound and lasting effect on our nation and ourselves. 'Paxman is witty, incisive, acerbic and opinionated . . . In short, he carries the whole thing off with panache bordering on effrontery' Piers Brendon, Sunday Times 'Paxman is a magnificent historian, and Empire may be remembered as his finest work' Independent on Sunday Jeremy Paxman was born in Yorkshire and educated at Cambridge. He is an award-winning journalist who spent ten years reporting from overseas, notably for Panorama. He is the author of five books including The English. He is the presenter of Newsnight and University Challenge and has presented BBC documentaries on various subjects including Victorian art and Wilfred Owen.
Download or read book Empire of Lies written by Guy Sorman and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2009-04-26 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before the totalitarian reign of Mao Zedong and his immediate successors, never in human history had an entire nation been under such intense surveillance. The Chinese not only had to speak alike; they had to think alike. Traveling to China regularly since 1967, and spending all of 2005 and 2006 there, Guy Sorman saw it all, and in this jaw-dropping book, he documents the horrifying stories of China through the 21st century. He shows how the Party's primary concern is not improving the lives of the downtrodden; it seeks power more than it seeks social development. It expends extraordinary energy in suppressing Chinese freedoms-the media operate under suffocating censorship, and political opposition can result in expulsion or prison-even as it tries to seduce the West, which has conferred greater legitimacy on it than do the Chinese themselves.
Book Synopsis Remaking the Chinese Empire by : Yuanchong Wang
Download or read book Remaking the Chinese Empire written by Yuanchong Wang and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remaking the Chinese Empire examines China’s development from an empire into a modern state through the lens of Sino-Korean political relations during the Qing period. Incorporating Korea into the historical narrative of the Chinese empire, it demonstrates that the Manchu regime used its relations with Chosŏn Korea to establish, legitimize, and consolidate its identity as the civilized center of the world, as a cosmopolitan empire, and as a modern sovereign state. For the Manchu regime and for the Chosŏn Dynasty, the relationship was one of mutual dependence, central to building and maintaining political legitimacy. Yuanchong Wang illuminates how this relationship served as the very model for China’s foreign relations. Ultimately, this precipitated contests, conflicts, and compromises among empires and states in East Asia, Inner Asia, and Southeast Asia – in particular, in the nineteenth century when international law reached the Chinese world. By adopting a long-term and cross-border perspective on high politics at the empire’s core and periphery, Wang revises our understanding of the rise and transformation of the last imperial dynasty of China. His work reveals new insights on the clashes between China’s foreign relations system and its Western counterpart, imperialism and colonialism in the Chinese world, and the formation of modern sovereign states in East Asia. Most significantly, Remaking the Chinese Empire breaks free of the established, national history-oriented paradigm, establishing a new paradigm through which to observe and analyze the Korean impact on the Qing Dynasty.
Book Synopsis Everything Under the Heavens by : Howard W. French
Download or read book Everything Under the Heavens written by Howard W. French and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the former New York Times Asia correspondent and author of China's Second Continent, an incisive investigation of China's ideological development as it becomes an ever more aggressive player in regional and global diplomacy. For many years after its reform and opening in 1978, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That role, reports Howard French, has been set aside. China has asserted its place among the global heavyweights, revealing its plans for pan-Asian dominance by building its navy, increasing territorial claims to areas like the South China Sea, and diplomatically bullying smaller players. Underlying this attitude is a strain of thinking that casts China's present-day actions in decidedly historical terms, as the path to restoring the dynastic glory of the past. If we understand how that historical identity relates to current actions, in ways ideological, philosophical, and even legal, we can learn to forecast just what kind of global power China stands to become--and to interact wisely with a future peer. Steeped in deeply researched history as well as on-the-ground reporting, this is French at his revelatory best.
Book Synopsis Gardens of a Chinese Emperor by : Victoria M. Siu
Download or read book Gardens of a Chinese Emperor written by Victoria M. Siu and published by Lehigh University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-12 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Qianlong’s Yuanming Yuan (Garden of Perfect Brightness) was a microcosm of his world, with lush plants, artificial mountains and lakes, and colorful buildings. From within these precincts, the emperor ruled his lands, performed imperial rituals, and observed various religious ceremonies of his people. Destroyed and looted in 1860 by Western forces, it is today only partially restored. Using images, maps, and color-plates, this book reveals the philosophical, political, and artistic concepts that the gardens represented.
Book Synopsis Science in China, 1600–1900 by : Yi Kai Ho
Download or read book Science in China, 1600–1900 written by Yi Kai Ho and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2015-05-07 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Distinguished historian Benjamin A Elman's collective volume on the history of science in imperial China, brings together over 30 years of historical literature on the subject. With updates to the literature and new material including transcripts of podcasts and translated interview articles, Science in China takes the reader on a journey starting in the early 17th century with the missionary efforts of the Jesuits in China, and ending with the Protestant missions in the 19th century. These two milestone encounters brought Western sciences to local Chinese scholars with great success in shaping modern Chinese science. Elman studies the interaction between Western and Chinese sciences through philological research and evidence, and treats the two encounters not as separate events but as a continuum of creative exchange of scientific knowledge and discourse. Contents:Introduction — From Value to Fact: The Emergence of Phonology as a Precise Discipline in Late Imperial China Native Traditions of Natural Studies during the Ming–Qing Transition, 1600–1800Some Comparative Issues — Ming–Qing Border Defense and Jesuit Learning in Late Imperial ChinaThe Jesuit Role as "Technical Experts" in "High Qing" Western Learning and Evidential Research in the 18th Century The China Prize Essay Contest and the Late Qing Promotion of Modern ScienceThe Great Reversal: The "Rise of Japan" and the "Fall of China" after 1895Rethinking the 20th-Century Denigration of Traditional Chinese Science and Medicine in the 21st Century Readership: Undergraduates and researchers in history of science, Chinese history, history of Chinese science, philology, and history of East Asia and East Asian science. Key Features:Comprehensive volume on all writings of renown East Asian historian Benjamin A Elman on the history of science in imperial ChinaNew material and previously published works updated with contemporary research findingsKeywords:History of Science;Chinese History;Science in China;1600–1900;History;China
Book Synopsis State, Economy and the Great Divergence by : Peer Vries
Download or read book State, Economy and the Great Divergence written by Peer Vries and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-02-26 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: State, Economy and the Great Divergence provides a new analysis of what has become the central debate in global economic history: the 'great divergence' between European and Asian growth. Focusing on early modern China and Western Europe, in particular Great Britain, this book offers a new level of detail on comparative state formation that has wide-reaching implications for European, Eurasian and global history. Beginning with an overview of the historiography, Peer Vries goes on to extend and develop the debate, critically engaging with the huge volume of literature published on the topic to date. Incorporating recent insights, he offers a compelling alternative to the claims to East-West equivalence, or Asian superiority, which have come to dominate discourse surrounding this issue. This is a vital update to a key issue in global economic history and, as such, is essential reading for students and scholars interested in keeping up to speed with the on-going debates.
Download or read book On China written by Henry Kissinger and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-05-17 with total page 682 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Fascinating, shrewd . . . The book deftly traces the rhythms and patterns of Chinese history.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “No one can lay claim to so much influence on the shaping of foreign policy over the past 50 years as Henry Kissinger.” —The Financial Times In this sweeping and insightful history, Henry Kissinger turns for the first time at book length to a country he has known intimately for decades and whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. On China illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during such pivotal events as the initial encounters between China and tight line modern European powers, the formation and breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Korean War, and Richard Nixon’s historic trip to Beijing. With a new final chapter on the emerging superpower’s twenty-first-century role in global politics and economics, On China provides historical perspective on Chinese foreign affairs from one of the premier statesmen of our time.
Book Synopsis Iberian World Empires and the Globalization of Europe 1415–1668 by : Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla
Download or read book Iberian World Empires and the Globalization of Europe 1415–1668 written by Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-03-13 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book analyses Iberian expansion by using knowledge accumulated in recent years to test some of the most important theories regarding Europe’s economic development. Adopting a comparative perspective, it considers the impact of early globalization on Iberian and Western European institutions, social development and political economies. In spite of globalization’s minor importance from the commercial perspective before 1750, this book finds its impact decisive for institutional development, political economies, and processes of state-building in Iberia and Europe. The book engages current historiographies and revindicates the need to take the concept of composite monarchies as a point of departure in order to understand the period’s economic and social developments, analysing the institutions and societies resulting from contact with Iberian peoples in America and Asia. The outcome is a study that nuances and contests an excessively-negative yet prevalent image of the Iberian societies, explores the difficult relationship between empires and globalization and opens paths for comparisons to other imperial formations.
Book Synopsis The Cambridge History of China: Volume 9, The Ch'ing Dynasty to 1800, Part 2 by : Willard J. Peterson
Download or read book The Cambridge History of China: Volume 9, The Ch'ing Dynasty to 1800, Part 2 written by Willard J. Peterson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-07 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 9, Part 2 of The Cambridge History of China is the second of two volumes which together explore the political, social and economic developments of the Ch'ing Empire during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries prior to the arrival of Western military power. Across fifteen chapters, a team of leading historians explore how the eighteenth century's greatest contiguous empire in terms of geographical size, population, wealth, cultural production, political order and military domination peaked and then began to unravel. The book sheds new light on the changing systems deployed under the Ch'ing dynasty to govern its large, multi-ethnic Empire and surveys the dynasty's complex relations with neighbouring states and Europe. In this compelling and authoritative account of a significant era of early modern Chinese history, the volume illustrates the ever-changing nature of the Ch'ing Empire, and provides context for the unforeseeable challenges that the nineteenth century would bring.
Download or read book Kowtow written by Eoin McDonnell and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2021-03-13 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1793, George Macartney introduced two of the leading empires of his age, and set off one of the greatest power shifts in history. Kowtow: Georgian Britain, Imperial China and the Irishman who Introduced Them tells the story of Macartney, Britain's first Ambassador to China, and his career that spanned the globe, from the Caribbean to India, from Brazil to Indonesia, and then finally through China to Peking. Kowtow explains why Macartney s embassy was needed, and examines the nature and personalities of the Ambassador and his imperial host, the Emperor Qianlong. The reader will journey with Macartney across the world into Peking s Summer Palace, before crossing over the Great Wall to Qianlong s summer hunting grounds in Rehe. The story of the Macartney mission provides significant lessons for modern diplomatic engagements and trade relations, and still causes great reverberations today. As a result, his mission represents one of the major missed opportunities in history and the challenges faced by Macartney still finds echoes in relations between China and the West.
Book Synopsis Rereading Modern Chinese History by : Zhu Weizheng
Download or read book Rereading Modern Chinese History written by Zhu Weizheng and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-04-21 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rereading Modern Chinese History is a collection of short essays on aspects of the history of the Qing dynasty, a regime dominated by Manchus that ruled China from 1644 to 1911. Using sources from that period and earlier it addresses key themes on the nature of Qing rule. These include the defeat by the British in the Opium Wars, the twin-track administration of Manchus and Han Chinese, the rise of Chinese military leaders in southern China, the purchase of office and endemic corruption, the challenge of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the failure of political reform. There are new insights on all the Qing emperors and the Empress Dowager Cixi, who ruled China between 1861 and 1908.
Book Synopsis Nineteenth-Century Travels, Explorations and Empires, Part I Vol 4 by : Peter J Kitson
Download or read book Nineteenth-Century Travels, Explorations and Empires, Part I Vol 4 written by Peter J Kitson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-01-26 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of writings on travels undertaken in the Victorian era. The texts collected in these volumes show how 19th century travel literature served the interests of empire by promoting British political and economic values that translated into manufacturing goods.
