China's Last Empire: The Great Qing pdf

William Rowe è uno storico sociale della Cina moderna, in termini molto ampi "sociale" e "moderna", il cui lavoro si è incentrato anche sulla storia culturale, intellettuale, economica e politica. I suoi primi due libri trattavano della storia ottocentesca di una delle principali città commerciali dell'entroterra cinese; Il secondo ha ricevuto un prestigioso riconoscimento dall'Associazione di Storia Urbana, e lo ha fatto impegnare nel dibattito sui temi della “società civile” e della “sfera pubblica”. Ha anche scritto libri sulla coscienza dell'élite dominante della dinastia Qing nel diciottesimo secolo relativamente prospero, e sui modelli di violenza agricola in una provincia cinese devastata dalla guerra abitualmente nel corso di sette secoli. Recentemente ha scritto una storia esegetica generale della dinastia Qing, intitolata L'ultimo impero della Cina.

China's Last Empire: The Great Qing pdf da William T. Rowe

In a brisk revisionist history, William Rowe challenges the standard narrative of Qing China as a decadent, inward-looking state that failed to keep pace with the modern West. The Great Qing was the second major Chinese empire ruled by foreigners. Three strong Manchu emperors worked diligently to secure an alliance with the conquered Ming gentry, though many of their social edicts—especially the requirement that ethnic Han men wear queues—were fiercely resisted. As advocates of a “universal” empire, Qing rulers also achieved an enormous expansion of the Chinese realm over the course of three centuries, including the conquest and incorporation of Turkic and Tibetan peoples in the west, vast migration into the southwest, and the colonization of Taiwan. Despite this geographic range and the accompanying social and economic complexity, the Qing ideal of “small government” worked well when outside threats were minimal. But the nineteenth-century Opium Wars forced China to become a player in a predatory international contest involving Western powers, while the devastating uprisings of the Taiping and Boxer rebellions signaled an urgent need for internal reform. Comprehensive state-mandated changes during the early twentieth century were not enough to hold back the nationalist tide of 1911, but they provided a new foundation for the Republican and Communist states that would follow. This original, thought-provoking history of China’s last empire is a must-read for understanding the challenges facing China today.