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Rating: 
Summary: History of China in a Modern Age
Review: This book is highly theoretical and inspiring work in modern Chinese history studies. I read this book with great pleasure and comfort. No doubt Professor Duara is both a wonderful historian and narrator of conflicting forces inside the Baboon Curtain. As an Indian-born historian, he made very interesting comparation between Indian and Chinese history. As we all know, most historian were hired by the government( in Duara's word " nation-state"), so in their works, China is supposed to be enjoying a monolithic power in the middle of world. But with the method of Duara, we see more distinctive accounts of the so called colonial age in ancient Chinese History. One of most important argument which Duara made in his book is that Enlightment historian suppose ancient China based on a homogenous community that corresponds to the instrumental ideology of the modern state. He pointed out there are some basic difference in Modern China and ancient Chinese traditionsespecially after the May,4th movement. Another point which I agree is that it is awkward to impose some Western classification machanism on the Chinese history. A lot of China-centered historians are well trained by Western ideology and tradition which is radically different from Asian heritage. For example, some historian argues that there is no real "feudalism" existed in Ancient China. So in this field, attempts to analyze the forces behind the account is very prone to be western-minded. Another claim he made is that the so called "nationlism" is far from from unique in the history. In this work, some important currents in the Pre-modern and Modern notion and figured are discussed, such as Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism, Mao and Communism, Fictions in the 1920s etc.
Rating:
Summary: History of China in a Modern Age
Review: This book is highly theoretical and inspiring work in modern Chinese history studies. I read this book with great pleasure and comfort. No doubt Professor Duara is both a wonderful historian and narrator of conflicting forces inside the Baboon Curtain. As an Indian-born historian, he made very interesting comparation between Indian and Chinese history. As we all know, most historian were hired by the government( in Duara's word " nation-state"), so in their works, China is supposed to be enjoying a monolithic power in the middle of world. But with the method of Duara, we see more distinctive accounts of the so called colonial age in ancient Chinese History. One of most important argument which Duara made in his book is that Enlightment historian suppose ancient China based on a homogenous community that corresponds to the instrumental ideology of the modern state. He pointed out there are some basic difference in Modern China and ancient Chinese traditions especially after the May,4th movement. Another point which I agree is that it is awkward to impose some Western classification machanism on the Chinese history. A lot of China-centered historians are well trained by Western ideology and tradition which is radically different from Asian heritage. For example, some historian argues that there is no real "feudalism" existed in Ancient China. So in this field, attempts to analyze the forces behind the account is very prone to be western-minded. Another claim he made is that the so called "nationlism" is far from from unique in the history. In this work, some important currents in the Pre-modern and Modern notion and figured are discussed, such as Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism, Mao and Communism, Fictions in the 1920s etc.
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