Book

The invention of China / Bill Hayton.

Summary:

"China's current leadership lays claim to a 5,000-year-old civilization, but "China" as a unified country and people, Bill Hayton argues, was created far more recently by a small group of intellectuals. In this compelling account, Hayton shows how China's present-day geopolitical problems--the fates of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, and the South China Sea--were born in the struggle to create a modern nation-state. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, reformers and revolutionaries adopted foreign ideas to "invent' a new vision of China. By asserting a particular, politicized version of the past the government bolstered its claim to a vast territory stretching from the Pacific to Central Asia. Ranging across history, nationhood, language, and territory, Hayton shows how the Republic's reworking of its past not only helped it to justify its right to rule a century ago--but continues to motivate and direct policy today." -- Page [4] of cover.

Record details

ISBN: 0300234821
ISBN: 9780300234824
Physical Description: xi, 290 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 25 cm
Publisher: New Haven [Connecticut] : Yale University Press, [2020]
Copyright: ©2020

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 252-280) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Introduction -- The invention of China -- The invention of sovereignty -- The invention of the Han race -- The invention of Chinese history -- The invention of Chinese nation -- The invention of Chinese language -- The invention of a national territory -- The invention of maritime claim -- Conclusion -- Dramatis personae -- Notes -- A guide to further reading -- Index.