The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective

(Paperback, 2nd edition)

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This fully updated second edition provides a succinct and self-contained history of China. The text emphasizes the relationship between China's modern era and its past, employing a unique approach that presents the story in terms of traditional Chinese historical theories. When the West enters the scene in modern times, Schrecker fits its impact into the Chinese story, rather than the reverse, as is commonly done. This study demonstrates that traditional China was not homogeneous or changeless, thus offering a much-needed corrective to common stereotypes about other cultures that is essential for both classroom use and for the general reader. The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective, available here in a fully updated second edition, provides a succinct and self-contained history of China. The text emphasizes the relationship between China's modern era and its past, employing a unique approach that presents the story in terms of traditional Chinese historical theories. When the West enters the scene in modern times, Schrecker fits its impact into the Chinese story, rather than the reverse, as is commonly done. This study demonstrates that traditional China was not homogeneous or changeless, thus offering a much-needed corrective to common stereotypes about other cultures that is essential for both classroom use and for the general reader. Schrecker's approach permits a full appreciation of the connections between the contemporary scene and the Chinese pastan appreciation that is increasingly important as China moves away from typical Communist practices and returns to more traditional Chinese patternsfor example, recreating a lively entrepreneurial economy of the sort that characterized China for a thousand years. This edition brings China's story up to the present. An additional preface and map are included, along with an updated bibliography and supplemental notes. A new appendix details the traditional understanding of the key Chinese historiographical terms used in the book.

Reviews

.,."a historical narrative certain to be of great value to students of politics and society. It is at once lively and engaging and theoretically sophisticated. By adopting a Chinese perspective and applying it not only to China itself but also to the interventions of the West, Schrecker opens the way for a new comparative history."-Michael Walzer The Institute for Advanced Study
"[T]he best book for students seeking to understand the fall of the Qing Dynasty and China's 20th century gyrations and their relation to Chinese traditions. This nicely updated and revised edition is a fine application of social theory to historical events."-Ross Terrill, author of Mao
"In this remarkably original synthesis, John Schrecker integrates Chinese and Western history in the last two hundred years. Instead of applying Western concepts of historical analysis to China, he seeks to understand modern history, both of China and of the West, through Chinese historiographical categories. The reader will appreciate not only the Chinese historiographical tradition but also the way this tradition enriches one's understanding of world history. An ambitious, much needed study."-Akira Iriye Harvard University
"John Schrecker has neatly sabotaged the habit of shoe-horning Chinese history into categories of analysis derived from Western experience. He recasts the familiar narrative in a vocabulary drawn from old Chinese ways of understanding Chinese politics. While retaining a social scientist's sensibility, he challenges the implicit conclusions about Chinese history that inevitably flow from a Western frame of reference. The effect is to see it all afresh."-Ernest P. Young University of Michigan

Author Bio

JOHN E. SCHRECKER is Professor of History and Chair of the East Asian Studies Program at Brandeis University. He is also a member of the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University. Among other works, he is the author of Imperialism and Chinese Nationalism, the co-author of Mrs. Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook, and numerous articles. In 1998, the first edition of The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective appeared in Chinese translation.