Historical Perspectives on Contemporary East Asia

Historical Perspectives on Contemporary East Asiaaddresses provocative themes concerning the experience of particular nations and of East Asia as a whole. It explores the turbulent process of integrating Asian societies and political systems into a global order dominated by the West over the past two centuries. 
The authors show that important changes were already underway before the western advance, which had their own internal logic and staying power. They describe how people in China, Japan, and Korea redefined and defended indigenous "traditions" even as they disagreed over what these traditions were and how to transform them. They make it clear that nationalism was a powerful motivating force in the modern development of these countries, but they stress that a wide variety of nationalisms emerged and collided in the dramatic history of modern Asia.

Business & Money

Goldman, Merle

Economics

Harvard University Press

John King Fairbank was the West's doyen on China, and this book is the full and final expression of his lifelong engagement with this vast ancient civilization. It remains a masterwork without parallel. The distinguished historian Merle Goldman brings the book up to date, covering reforms in the post-Mao period through the early years of the twenty-first century, including the leadership of Hu Jintao. She also provides an epilogue discussing the changes in contemporary China that will shape the nation in the years to come.

China: A New History, Second Enlarged Edition

History

Fairbank, John King

Asia

Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press

From Comrade to Citizen: The Struggle for Political Rights in China

A leading scholar of China's modern political development examines the changing relationship between the Chinese people and the state. Correcting the conventional view of China as having instituted extraordinary economic changes but having experienced few political reforms in the post-Mao period, Merle Goldman details efforts by individuals and groups to assert their political rights. 
 China's move to the market and opening to the outside world have loosened party controls over everyday life and led to the emergence of ideological diversity. Starting in the 1980s, multi-candidate elections for local officials were held, and term limits were introduced for communist party leaders. Establishment intellectuals who have broken away from party patronage have openly criticized government policies. Those intellectuals outside the party structures, because of their participation in the Cultural Revolution or the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, have organized petitions, published independent critiques, formed independent groups, and even called for a new political system. 
 Despite the party's repeated attempts to suppress these efforts, awareness about political rights has been spreading among the general population. Goldman emphasizes that these changes do not guarantee movement toward democracy, but she sees them as significant and genuine advances in the assertion of political rights in China.

A leading scholar of China's modern political development examines the changing relationship between the Chinese people and the state. Correcting the conventional view of China as having instituted extraordinary economic changes but having experienced few political reforms in the post-Mao period, Merle Goldman details efforts by individuals and groups to assert their political rights. 
China's move to the market and opening to the outside world have loosened party controls over everyday life and led to the emergence of ideological diversity. Starting in the 1980s, multi-candidate elections for local officials were held, and term limits were introduced for communist party leaders. Establishment intellectuals who have broken away from party patronage have openly criticized government policies. Those intellectuals outside the party structures, because of their participation in the Cultural Revolution or the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, have organized petitions, published independent critiques, formed independent groups, and even called for a new political system. 
Despite the party's repeated attempts to suppress these efforts, awareness about political rights has been spreading among the general population. Goldman emphasizes that these changes do not guarantee movement toward democracy, but she sees them as significant and genuine advances in the assertion of political rights in China.

China: A New History

THIS EDITION HAS BEEN REPLACED BY A NEWER EDITION.. 
 The late John King Fairbank was the West's doyen on China, and this book is the full and final expression of his lifelong engagement with this vast ancient civilization. This book remains a masterwork without parallel--a concise and authoritative account of China and its people over four millennia. The distinguished historian Merle Goldman has brought the book up to date with a chapter on events in the post-Mao period and a new preface and epilogue. She provides a detailed account of the wide array of changes--social, economic, cultural, and even political--that have taken place in China over the past two decades.

Reference

Belknap Press

THIS EDITION HAS BEEN REPLACED BY A NEWER EDITION..
The late John King Fairbank was the West's doyen on China, and this book is the full and final expression of his lifelong engagement with this vast ancient civilization. This book remains a masterwork without parallel--a concise and authoritative account of China and its people over four millennia. The distinguished historian Merle Goldman has brought the book up to date with a chapter on events in the post-Mao period and a new preface and epilogue. She provides a detailed account of the wide array of changes--social, economic, cultural, and even political--that have taken place in China over the past two decades.

Examines ideological conflict in China since 1960 and shows how purges resulted when dissent exceeded official political limits

China’s Intellectuals: Advise and Dissent

Suppression and thaw have marked the course of communism in China. Merle Goldman traces that shifting pattern over the last decades of Mao's regime, linking it to the unique role of the intellectual in government. Her engrossing account of the relations between the intellectuals and the governing elites provides a map of understanding to some recent events in the turbulent history of the People's Republic.

China's Intellectuals: Advise and Dissent

In modern China, literature has been regarded as a vehicle of political and idea logical dissent, a concept that has persisted under communism. This study exhaustively analyzes the conflict between the Chinese Communist party and the intellectuals, particularly the writers, in the crucial decades of the 1940's and 1950's.   By singling out individual writers as egregious examples, party leaders, through a series of thought-control campaigns, have tried to mold intellectuals along orthodox doctrinal lines. But these same leaders, holding to the paradoxical conviction that personal initiative and creativity are necessary catalysts in the effort to construct a Communist state, have not wanted to stifle these qualities altogether. The result has been a pattern of permissiveness and pressure, as illustrated by the ill-fated "Hundred Flowers" movement and the subsequent return to a policy of harsh regimentation.   In depicting the views, feelings, frustrations, and tragic fates of many individual intellectuals in the confrontation with an oppressive party bureaucracy, the author reveals, in an unprecedented way, the nature of the authoritarian society that has evolved in Communist China. Her study convincingly demonstrates that totalitarian rule has not guaranteed the subservience of the Chinese intelligentsia and, even more important, that the alienated, critical intellectual remains a significant and vital force.

Literary Dissent in Communist China (Harvard East Asian Series, 29)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

In modern China, literature has been regarded as a vehicle of political and idea logical dissent, a concept that has persisted under communism. This study exhaustively analyzes the conflict between the Chinese Communist party and the intellectuals, particularly the writers, in the crucial decades of the 1940's and 1950's.  By singling out individual writers as egregious examples, party leaders, through a series of thought-control campaigns, have tried to mold intellectuals along orthodox doctrinal lines. But these same leaders, holding to the paradoxical conviction that personal initiative and creativity are necessary catalysts in the effort to construct a Communist state, have not wanted to stifle these qualities altogether. The result has been a pattern of permissiveness and pressure, as illustrated by the ill-fated "Hundred Flowers" movement and the subsequent return to a policy of harsh regimentation.  In depicting the views, feelings, frustrations, and tragic fates of many individual intellectuals in the confrontation with an oppressive party bureaucracy, the author reveals, in an unprecedented way, the nature of the authoritarian society that has evolved in Communist China. Her study convincingly demonstrates that totalitarian rule has not guaranteed the subservience of the Chinese intelligentsia and, even more important, that the alienated, critical intellectual remains a significant and vital force.

Literary Dissent in Communist China

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Books by Goldman, Merle

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Goldman, Merle. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Historical Perspectives on Contemporary East Asia

China: A New History, Second Enlarged Edition

From Comrade to Citizen: The Struggle for Political Rights in China

From Comrade to Citizen: The Struggle for Political Rights in China

China: A New History

China: A New History

China’s Intellectuals: Advise and Dissent

China's Intellectuals: Advise and Dissent

Literary Dissent in Communist China (Harvard East Asian Series, 29)

Literary Dissent in Communist China