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Introduction to the Global China Forum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2019

SHIRLEY YE
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham Email: S.Ye@bham.ac.uk
HANS VAN DE VEN
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge Email: jjv10@cam.ac.uk

Extract

‘Global China: New Approaches’ consists of four articles that explore the methodological contours between transnational history and China studies. China historians have not been invulnerable to the excitements of transnational history. Few would be happy to be suspected of still believing in a unique and enduring Chinese essence, and fewer still would be willing to argue that the foreign has been irrelevant in China, not just for the last two centuries but for its entire history. The urge to break free from histories shackled to the nation-state (whether told as revolution or not), the desire to be alert to connections with other areas of the world, and the wish to escape from teleological narratives characterize much of the most arresting work done on China in recent years. China-centredness has not disappeared, but it certainly has attenuated.

Type
Forum Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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Footnotes

Acknowledgments: Many thanks to the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, which generously funded the lectures that took place at the universities of Birmingham and Cambridge during 2014–2015. Without the support of Paul Katz, Naomi Standen, Adam Chau, Ghassan Moazzin, Shu-mei Shih, Eric Tagliacozzo, and Howard Chiang, the lectures and this Forum would not have happened. Finally, the authors thank Norbert Peabody, Joe Lawson, and Philip Thai for their comments on earlier versions of this article.

References

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