{"product_id":"1368-china-and-the-making-of-the-modern-world-paperback-softback-9781503638136","title":"1368; China and the Making of the Modern World (Paperback \/ softback) 9781503638136","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003e1368\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eChina and the Making of the Modern World\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eAli Humayun Akhtar (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781503638136\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 13 February 2024\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e256 pages, 27 halftones\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.362 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"An original global history that tells a compelling story of the interconnectedness of the world in premodern times.\"—Fabio Rambelli, UC Santa Barbara \"This book provides us with a valuable historical understanding of one of the big questions of our time: how and why has China become a 21st -century global superpower?\"—Roger Crowley, author of \u003ci\u003eConquerors\u003c\/i\u003e \"\u003ci\u003e1368\u003c\/i\u003e is an exciting and important book that broadens our understanding of the Ming and Qing centuries, two momentous eras in Chinese and world history.\"—Hyunhee Park, author of \u003ci\u003eMapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds\u003c\/i\u003e \"A brilliant reorientation of 600 years of history. Its global perspective explores afresh a number of multifaceted encounters with high points in China's civilization and successfully avoids both Sinocentric and Eurocentric narratives. A remarkable story succinctly told.\"—Wang Gungwu, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Eurasian Core and its Edges\u003c\/i\u003e \"Akhtar's smooth and rich narrative, grounded in extant scholarship, archival sources, literary texts and material culture, makes \u003ci\u003e1368\u003c\/i\u003e accessible and thought-provoking for readers of different backgrounds.\"—Chiara Formichi, author of \u003ci\u003eIslam and Asia\u003c\/i\u003e \"Ali Akhtar writes a longue durée history from an Asian perspective. His masterly exploration of global-Asian interaction leaves readers mulling over an important question: How are we to understand Asia's and specifically also China's role in the evolving global order? The light of history offers some answers.\"—Peter Borschberg, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Singapore and Melaka Straits\u003c\/i\u003e \"A wide-ranging and very thought-provoking book. \u003ci\u003e1368\u003c\/i\u003e presents a vision of how the world became knitted together by the seams.\"—Eric Tagliacozzo, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Longest Journey\u003c\/i\u003e \"A remarkably concise and well-illustrated volume that commands attention for its Asia-centered approach to global history as well as its erudite and original coverage of a broad range of subjects, from the history of the Silk Road, the Spice Trade, the European overseas empires, to modern Japan and global China in the 21st century, and more.\"—André Wink, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Making of the Indo-Islamic world c.700–1800 CE\u003c\/i\u003e \"This exciting study reveals the place of global China in the modern world's economic system and its layered history. From the book's long-duration understanding of history, we can learn many perspectives on our relationship with China as a new global power.\"—Eiji Nagasawa, The University of Tokyo \"Ali Akhtar's \u003ci\u003e1368\u003c\/i\u003e reveals the Indian Ocean, the Silk Road, and China's relations with the Persianate World to be significant strands in the weaving of global modernity.\"—Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Dao Of Muhammad\u003c\/i\u003e \"Ali Humayun Akhtar's book offers an important intervention in scholarly considerations of the transitions to the global modern age. Akhtar builds upon the recent turn to the study of social networks while at the same time challenging us to think more creatively about the dynamic nature of such networks. The work highlights elements such as the prominent role of Muslims in the renewed promotions of network ties based on premodern relations between China, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Chinese governments and related networks, including Japanese governments, were international and, arguably, globalizing influences, long before their appearance as global players in the 20th century.\"—Brian Ruppert, Kanagawa University, author of \u003ci\u003eJewel in the Ashes\u003c\/i\u003e \"With deep research and engaging prose, \u003ci\u003e1368\u003c\/i\u003e upends orthodox trajectories of research that have long inquired about the impact of 'the west' upon 'the rest' through a vivid exploration of how travelers and wanderers became conduits of Chinese culture to the rest of the world. 1368 is a timely book and positively engrossing read.\"—William Noseworthy, Cornell University \"[\u003ci\u003e1368\u003c\/i\u003e] is an enlightening look into a vital historical era that has been understudied in the West\"—\u003ci\u003ePublisher's Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e \"Today's China is a manufacturing powerhouse producing much of the world's trade goods. Akhtar makes the case that this phenomenon is a reoccurrence of China's manufacturing dominance in international trade before the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, which tipped the balance to Western Europe and the United States.\"—Joshua Wallace, \u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e \"Akhtar synthesizes more than 500 years of global history with style and economy. He fluidly construes Zen Buddhism, Timurid travel accounts, Islam in Korea, so-called \"peace marriages\" with Malay vassals, Vermeer's \"The Milkmaid\" (ca. 1660), Thomas Paine and Voltaire on Confucius, and the rise and fall of the Tokugawa shogunate—and contrasts the divergent strategies and legacies of the Europeans on one hand, and those of the Chinese and Japanese on the other.\"—Maxwell Carter, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA new picture of China's rise since the Age of Exploration and its historical impact on the modern world.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe establishment of the Great Ming dynasty in 1368 was a monumental event in world history. A century before Columbus, Beijing sent a series of diplomatic missions across the South China Sea and Indian Ocean that paved the way for China's first modern global era. \u003ci\u003e1368\u003c\/i\u003e maps China's ascendance from the embassies of Admiral Zheng He to the arrival of European mariners and the shock of the Opium Wars. In Ali Humayun Akhtar's new picture of world history, China's current rise evokes an earlier epoch, one that sheds light on where Beijing is heading today.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSpectacular accounts in Persian and Ottoman Turkish describe palaces of silk and jade in Beijing's Forbidden City. Malay legends recount stories of Chinese princesses arriving in Melaka with gifts of porcelain and gold. During Europe's Age of Exploration, Iberian mariners charted new passages to China, which the Dutch and British East India Companies transformed into lucrative tea routes. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBut during the British Industrial Revolution, the rise of steam engines and factories allowed the export of the very commodities once imported from China. By the end of the Opium Wars and the arrival of Commodore Perry in Japan, Chinese and Japanese reformers called for their own industrial revolutions to propel them into the twentieth century.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhat has the world learned from China since the Ming, and how did China reemerge in the 1970s as a manufacturing superpower? Akhtar's book provides much-needed context for understanding China's rise today and the future of its connections with both the West and a resurgent Asia.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eIndex\u003cbr\u003e  1. Five Hundred Years across the Indian Ocean and\u003cbr\u003e  South China Sea\u003cbr\u003e  2. Global Beijing under the Great Ming\u003cbr\u003e  3. Picturing China in Persian along the Silk Routes\u003cbr\u003e  4. Trading with China in Malay along the Spice Routes\u003cbr\u003e  5. Europe'\u003cbr\u003es Search for the Spice Islands\u003cbr\u003e  6. A Sino-Jesuit Tradition of Science and Mapmaking\u003cbr\u003e  7. Porcelain across the Dutch Empire\u003cbr\u003e  8. Tea across the British Empire\u003cbr\u003e  9. China'\u003cbr\u003es Eclipse and Japan'\u003cbr\u003es Modernization\u003cbr\u003e  Epilogue: A New Turn to the East\u003cbr\u003e  Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e  Notes\u003cbr\u003e  Index\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Stanford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52670808490264,"sku":"9781503638136","price":13.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/1368-china-and-the-making-of-the-modern-world-paperback-softback-9781503638136","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}