Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949 (Leiden in Comparative Historiography)

Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949 offers a panoramic study of Chinese reflections on progress, its multifaceted expressions, contesting interpretations, highly optimistic implications, but also the criticism it encountered. Contents Acknowledgments Contributors Introduction Progress, History, and Time in Chinese Discoursesafter the 1890s Part 1 Initial Conceptual Encounters Chapter 1 The Chinese Concept of “Progress” Chapter 2 The Progress of Civilization and Confucianism in Modern East Asia: Fukuzawa Yukichi and Different Forms of Enlightenment Part 2 Tides of Optimism Chapter 3 The Idea of Progress in Modern China: the Case of Yan Fu Chapter 4 Prospect Optimism in Modern China: the Formation of a Political Paradigm Chapter 5 An Anatomy of the Utopian Impulse in Modern Chinese Political Thought, 1890–1940 Chapter 6 The Optimism of Cultural Construction in the 1930s: Wholesale Westernization, Cultural Unit Theory, and Cultural Construction on a Chinese Base Chapter 7 Fantasizing Science: the Idea of Progress in Early Chinese Science Fiction (1905–1920) Part 3 Margins of Skepticism Chapter 8 Critiques of Progress: Reflections on Chinese Conservatism Chapter 9 Playing the Same Old Tricks: Lu Xun’s Reflections on Modernity in His Essay “Modern History” Index "Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949 offers a panoramic view of reflections on progress in modern China. Since the turn of the twentieth century, the discourses on progress shape Chinese understandings of modernity and its pitfalls. As this in-depth study shows, these discourses play a pivotal role in the fields of politics, society, culture, as well as philosophy, history, and literature. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the Chinese ideas of progress, their often highly optimistic implications, but also the criticism of modernity they offered, opened the gateway for reflections on China's past, its position in the present world, and its future course"-- Provided by publisher