World History and National Identity in China
The Twentieth Century

Focuses on individual lived experiences to trace the development of world-historical studies in China's long twentieth century.

Xin Fan (Author)

9781108829502, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 December 2022

265 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.389 kg

'This book is a highly intriguing study on the history of world history writing in modern China. It is a long-awaited addendum to the field, moving away from a Eurocentric perspective and excavating the contributions of Chinese historians … I recommend the book for a broad readership. Its eloquent style and detailed annotations make it a welcome addition to the canon in Chinese studies, among comparative historians, and in historiography.' Marc Andre Matten, The China Journal

Nationalism is pervasive in China today. Yet nationalism is not entrenched in China's intellectual tradition. Over the course of the twentieth century, the combined forces of cultural, social, and political transformations nourished its development, but resistance to it has persisted. Xin Fan examines the ways in which historians working on the world beyond China from within China have attempted to construct narratives that challenge nationalist readings of the Chinese past and the influence that these historians have had on the formation of Chinese identity. He traces the ways in which generations of historians, from the late Qing through the Republican period, through the Mao period to the relative moment of 'opening' in the 1980s, have attempted to break cross-cultural boundaries in writing an alternative to the national narrative.

List of Figures and Tables
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction: Control and Resistance: The Social Production of World History under the Influence of Radical Politics
1. The Confucian Legacy: World-Historical Writing at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
2. The Cultural Destiny: Nationalism and World History in Republican China
3. Becoming the “World”: World Historians in the Early People's Republic
4. The Forced Analogy: Control, Resistance, and World History in the 1950s
5. Imagining Global Antiquity: Continuity, Transformation, and Word History in Post-Mao China
Conclusion: World History and the Value of the Past
List of Characters
Bibliography
Index

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Asian history [HBJF]