Public Spheres and Collective Identities

by Schluchter,Wolfgang

• ISBN13: 9780765807144
• ISBN10: 0765807149
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2000-12-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Today it is assumed that we understand contemporary nationalism and nation-building. Researchers rarely consider the very different traditions from which such state-building emerged. Instead, there is almost too much discussion of the "global village", with its supposed uniformity and inevitable trajectories. We need to view modernity as something other than a single condition with a preordained future. New visions of a modern civilization are emerging throughout the world, calling for a far-reaching appraisal of the older visions of modernization.Following Eisenstadt's and Schluchter's introduction, Bjorn Wittrock explores the varieties and transitions of early modern societies, noting that only by looking at societies' collective identities and their modes of mediating in the public sphere can the distinguishing factors between modernity be appreciated. Sheldon Pollock discusses the use of vernacular language in India through its literary culture and polity, 1000-1500. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, sums up major developments in the recent historiography of South Asia from 1400 to 1750. David L. Howell focuses on the boundaries of the early modern Japanese state, including its political boundaries and the boundaries of collective identity and social status. Mary Elizabeth Berry examines public life in authoritarian Japan. Frederic Wakeman, Jr. probes the boundaries of the political game and how they were affected by the increased political centralization that developed after the disorder of the Ming-Qing transition during the seventeenth century. Alexander Woodside discusses territorial order and collective-identity tensions in Confucian Asia. Bernhard Giesen argues that the FrenchEnlightenment can be described as an extension of absolutist court culture. Finally essay, Victor Perez-Diaz examines the state and public sphere in Spain during the Ancient Regime contrasting two ideal types of states -- a "nomocrat

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Shmuel N. Eisenstadt
Wolfgang Schluchter
Introduction: Paths to Early Modernities---A Comparative View	1	(18)
Bjorn Wittrock
Early Modernities: Varieties and Transitions	19	(22)
Sheldon Pollock
India in the Vernacular Millennium: Literary Culture and Polity, 1000--1500	41	(34)
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Hearing Voices: Vignettes of Early Modernity in South Asia, 1400--1750	75	(30)
David L. Howell
Territoriality and Collective Identity in Tokugawa Japan	105	(28)
Mary Elizabeth Berry
Public Life in Authoritarian Japan	133	(34)
Frederic Wakeman, Jr.
Boundaries of the Public Sphere in Ming and Qing China	167	(24)
Alexander Woodside
Territorial Order and Collective-Identity Tensions in Confucian Asia: China, Vietnam, Korea	191	(30)
Bernhard Giesen
Cosmopolitans, Patriots, Jacobins, and Romantics	221	(30)
Victor Perez-Diaz
State and Public Sphere in Spain during the Ancient Regime	251	(30)
Index	281