Making China Modern pdf

Klaus Mühlhahn (born August 19, 1963) is a German historian and sinologist who is a Professor and Vice President of the Free University of Berlin. He was awarded the John K. Fairbank Prize in 2009 for his book Criminal Justice in China: A History. In 1993 Mühlhahn received a Master's degree in Sinology from the Free University of Berlin, where he also worked as research assistant from 1993 to 2002 in the Department of Sinology. In 1998 he received his Ph.D. in Sinology.

Making China Modern pdf by Klaus Mühlhahn

It is tempting to attribute China’s recent ascendance to changes in political leadership and economic policy. Making China Modern teaches otherwise. Moving beyond the standard framework of Cold War competition and national resurgence, Klaus Mühlhahn situates twenty-first-century China in the nation’s long history of creative adaptation. In the mid-eighteenth century, when the Qing Empire reached the height of its power, China dominated a third of the world’s population and managed its largest economy. But as the Opium Wars threatened the nation’s sovereignty from without and the Taiping Rebellion ripped apart its social fabric from within, China found itself verging on free fall. A network of family relations, economic interdependence, institutional innovation, and structures of governance allowed citizens to regain their footing in a convulsing world. In China’s drive to reclaim regional centrality, its leaders looked outward as well as inward, at industrial developments and international markets offering new ways to thrive. This dynamic legacy of overcoming adversity and weakness is apparent today in China’s triumphs―but also in its most worrisome trends. Telling a story of crisis and recovery, Making China Modern explores the versatility and resourcefulness that matters most to China’s survival, and to its future possibilities.