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Interviews | July 4, 2009

Jill Owens: IMG Powells.com Interview: Luis Alberto Urrea

2 comments By Jill Owens

luisalbertourreaLuis Alberto Urrea is a poet, novelist, journalist, and essayist who has been writing about the relationship between the United States and Mexico,... Continue »
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Modern China: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

by Rana Mitter

Modern China: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) Cover

ISBN13: 9780199228027
ISBN10: 0199228027
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

China today is never out of the news: from human rights controversies and the continued legacy of Tiananmen Square, to global coverage of the Beijing Olympics, and the Chinese "economic miracle." It is a country of contradictions and transitions: a peasant society with some of the world's most futuristic cities, an ancient civilization that is modernizing as rapidly as possible, a walled-off nation that is increasingly at the center of world trade. This Very Short Introduction offers an indispensable starting point for anyone who needs to quickly know the themes and controversies that have shaped modern China. Prize-winning author and scholar Rana Mitter examines the modern history, politics, economy, and thriving cultural scene of contemporary China, and its relations with the wider world. This lively guide covers a range of social issues from the decline of footbinding and the position of women in society, to the influence of television and film, and the role of the overseas Chinese diaspora. It covers many prominent figures as well, such as the Communist leaders, the last emperors, and prominent writers and artists throughout China's history.
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About the Author

Rana Mitter is University Lecturer in the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of St Cross College. He is the author of The Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance and Collaboration in Modern China, and A Bitter Revolution: China's Struggle with the Modern World (OUP, 2004), for which he won the title Times Higher Education Young Academic Author of the Year 2005. The book was also runner-up for the Longman/History Today Book of the Year prize, a finalist for the British Academy Book Prize, and named by Foreign Affairs as one of five "must-read" Notable Books on China. He presents and comments regularly on radio and television, and his reviews and essays have appeared in the Financial Times, History Today, and London Review of Books.

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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
CultureWars, September 2, 2008 (view all comments by CultureWars)
Mitter addresses himself to the question he clearly finds more interesting: is China modern? The difficulty is in deciding the criteria. The beginning of the book dealt with a vague mix of secularism, individualism, self-awareness and equality, but he’s aware it’s unsatisfactory to equate modernity with ‘the West’. This leads to some slightly contradictory conclusions. Mitter sees modernity during the Mao era, ‘This was the modern politics of the totalitarian state’; but also sees as an example of China’s modernisation that ‘China today is overall not a totalitarian state, nor a military junta, nor a state run at the personal whim of a dictator’. The Cultural Revolution, we are told, was meant to create a self-aware citizenry. But if ‘self-aware’ means being critical of your own actions, then the Cultural Revolution was one of the least self-aware periods of world history; and if it means knowing you’re part of a citizenry, then is this really part of being modern? The difficulty of settling on any fixed criteria means the chapter ‘Is Chinese Society Modern?’ drifts rather unstably from equality of the sexes, to the effects of war, to whether China is richer now than under Mao, to whether China is free, to self-improvement, to Taiwan, Hong Kong and overseas Chinese communities.

And so as to whether China is modern, it’s enough to say that to understand the modern world, we need to understand China. Rana Mitter’s book contains information galore and, despite its necessary omissions, will help many readers do just that.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780199228027
Subtitle:
A Very Short Introduction
Author:
Mitter, Rana
Publisher:
Oxford University Press, USA
Subject:
Asia - China
Subject:
China
Subject:
Civilization
Subject:
Economic Conditions
Subject:
Government - International
Subject:
China Civilization Western influences.
Subject:
China Civilization 20th century.
Series:
Very Short Introductions
Publication Date:
April 2008
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
153
Dimensions:
6.88x4.41x.37 in. .32 lbs.
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