Revolution and Its Past: Identities and Change in Modern Chinese History

by Schoppa, R. Keith

• ISBN13: 9780205726912
• ISBN10: 0205726917
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-02-19
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Unlike other texts on modern Chinese history, which tend to be either encyclopedic or too pedantic,Revolution and Its Past : Identities and Change in Modern Chinese History, 3/e,is comprehensive but concise, focused on the most recent scholarship, and written in a style thatengagesstudents from beginning to end. The Third Edition uses the theme of identities--of the nation itself and of the Chinese people--to probe the vast changes that have swept over China from late imperial times to the early twenty-first century. In so doing, it explores therangeof identities that China has chosen over time and those that outsiders have attributed to China and its people, showing how, as China rapidly modernizes, the issue of Chinese identity in the modern world looms large.

Author Biography

R. Keith Schoppa, Loyola College in Maryland

Table of Contents

Preface  
Notes on Pronunciation  
List of Maps  

Part 1: From the Heights to the Depths: Challenges to Traditional Chinese Identities, 1780—1901

Chapter 1: IDENTITIES 
History and Identity  
Associational Identities: Lineages and Families  
Associational Identities: Social Connections  
Associational Identities: Relations to the “Other”  
Spatial Identities: Native Place  
Spatial Identities: Village and Marketing Communities  
Spatial Identities: Macroregions and Provinces  

Chapter 2: CHINESE AND MANCHUS  
Patterns in Early Qing
Preserving a Manchu Identity  
Buying Into Chinese Culture  
Dealing with the Other  
Identity and Change: The Qianlong Emperor in the Late Eighteenth Century  
Identity Crisis  
Emerging Problems  
The Daoguang Emperor  

Chapter 3: THE OPIUM WAR AND THE TREATY SYSTEM: CHALLENGES TO CHINESE IDENTITY   
 The Early Western Role  
China and the West: Mutual Perceptions  
Opium: The Problem and the War  
The Unequal Treaty System and Its Impact on Chinese Identity  
The Missionary and Cultural Imperialism  

Chapter 4: AN AGE OF REBELLION: DEFIANCE OF AND COMMITMENTS TO TRADITIONAL CHINESE IDENTITIES  
Traditional Rebellions  
The Taiping War (1851—1864): Attempting to Revolutionize Identity  
Guerrilla Warfare: The Nian Rebellion (1853—1868)  
Muslims versus Chinese: Clashes in Ethnic Identity  

Chapter 5: THE POWER OF TRADITIONAL CULTURAL IDENTITY: CHINESE REACTIONS TO CONTINUING THREATS  
Unwilling to Change (Or Holding to that Old-Time Identity)   
Self-Strengthening  
The Loss of Tributary States: Ryukyu Islands, Korea, and Vietnam
The War with France and the Impact of Self-Strengthening  
Identity and Perception: The Roles of the Empress Dowager  

Chapter 6: THE DEVASTATING NINETIES: DESTROYING TRADITIONAL IDENTITIES  
Ideology for Change: Kang Youwei’s Intellectual Bomb  
Political and Cultural Earthquake: Defeat by the “Dwarf People”  
A New Phase of Imperialism: Carving the Melon  
The Reform Movement and the Hundred Days: Clashing Identities  
The Boxer Catastrophe: Which Identity Now?    
 

Part 2: “No Checking the Tides of Change”: Reconstructing Social, Cultural, and Political Identity, 1901—1928

Chapter 7: Revolutionaries: Manchu and Anti-Manchu
The Stirrings of a New China in Macroregional Cores  
The Manchu Reform Movement: Education  
The Manchu Reform Movement: Military Change  
The Manchu Reform Movement: Constitutionalism  
The Anti-Manchu Revolutionary Movement  
The 1911 Revolution  

Chapter 8: SELECTING IDENTITIES: THE EARLY REPUBLIC  
Legacies of the Revolution  
The Presidency of Yuan Shikai  
Capitalists to the Fore  
The Power of the Gun  
China Totters on the World Stage  

Chapter 9: CONSTRUCTING A NEW CULTURAL IDENTITY: THE MAY FOURTH MOVEMENT  
The New Culture Movement: “Down with Confucius and Sons”  
Language and Laboratories for a New Culture  
The May Fourth Incident and Its Aftermath  
Political Change First; Cultural Change Will Follow  
Cultural Change First; Political Change Will Follow  
Neotraditionalism  
The Historical Significance of the May Fourth Movement  

Chapter 10: DRAWING THE SWORD OF OPPOSITION: IDENTITY INCREASINGLY POLITICIZED  
The Birth of the Chinese Communist Party  
Giving the Guomindang a New Identity  
Things Fall Apart: Sun’s Death and the May 30th Movement  
The Beginning of Mass Mobilization  
The Emergence of Chiang Kai-shek and the Northern Expedition  

 

Part 3: Revolution and Identity: Social Revolution and the Power of Tradition, 1928—1960

Chapter 11: REVOLUTION IN RETREAT: THE NANJING DECADE  
Chiang Kai-shek  
Military Power, Party Factionalism, and Residual Warlordism  
Secrets of Chiang’s Ability to Retain Power  
Chiang’s Record  

Chapter 12: REVOLUTION REBORN: THE COMMUNISTS IN THE 1930s  
The Party: “So Widely Scattered and So Badly Mauled”   
Finding Its Way: The Party’s Factions  
The Jiangxi Soviet  
The Other Soviets  
The Long March  
Building the Base at Yan’an  

Chapter 13: A RISING CLASH OF NATIONAL IDENTITIES: CHINA AND JAPAN, THE 1920s AND 1930s  
A Case of Mistaken Identity  
Japanese Aggression Turns Manchuria into Manchukuo  
Japanese Aggression on the March  
The Xi’an Incident  
Marco Polo Bridge  

Chapter 14: THE SINO—JAPANESE WAR, 1937—1945  
The War’s General Course: An Overview  
The Exodus  
Soldiers and the Military  
Collaboration  
Wartime Propaganda  
The United States and China in Wartime: Rough Sledding  
The Communists in Yan’an, 1942—1945  
Wartime Guomindang China  

Chapter 15: TOWARD DAYBREAK: STRUGGLING FOR CHINA’S IDENTITY, 1945—1949  
The Situation at War’s End  
Economic Suicide  
Political Disaster  
Military Struggle  
Did Chiang Lose the War or Did Mao Win the War?   
Japan’s Colony, Taiwan  
Guomindang Relations with the Taiwanese: February 1947 and Its Impact  

Chapter 16: PATHS TO THE FUTURE  
The Structure of the Communist Party-State  
The East Is Red: The Hallmarks of the Communist Revolution  
At War with the United Nations: The Korean War  
The First Five-Year Plan (1953—1957)   
The Taiwan Model: Authoritarianism and Reform  
The Taiwan “Miracle”   

Chapter 17: COMING UNGLUED  
“Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom!” (Then Cut Them Down)   
The Great Leap Forward (and Backward)   
The Worst Famine in History  
The Sino—Soviet Split  
Crack-Up  

 

Part 4: From “Politics in Command” to the Glory of Getting Rich: Contemporary Change and Identity, 1961—2009

Chapter 18: DEATH DANCE: THE GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION  
Why?   
The Violently Radical Red Guard Phase, 1966—1969  
The Mystery of Lin Biao  
The Year of the Dragon  
Mao in Retrospect   
 
Chapter 19: ECONOMICS IN COMMAND: THE END OF COMMUNISM AND THE FLOURISHING OF “MARKET SOCIALISM”
Socialism with a Chinese Face  
Opening the Window to the World  
The Expansion of Economic Reforms, 1990-2009 
Government Action in Dealing with Impacts of Reform

 

Chapter 20: “ONE WORLD, ONE DREAM”: CHINA’S NEW WORLD 
Political Authoritarianism
Nationalism and International Relations  
2008: Achievements and Problems

 

Chapter 21: A QUESTION OF IDENTITY: THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA ON TAIWAN SINCE THE 1970s  
Birth of a Democracy  
The Issue: The Relationship with the PRC  
From Economic Miracle to Economic Problems  
Diplomacy: Seeking Respect  
Society in Flux  
A Question of Identity  

 

Epilogue: The Issue of Human Rights  

 

Notes  
Pronunciation Guide  
Index  
Credits