Global History with Chinese Characteristics: Autocratic States along the Silk Road in the Decline of the Spanish and Qing Empires 1680-1796 (Palgrave Studies in Comparative Global History)

This open access book considers a pivotal era in Chinese history from a global perspective. This book’s insight into Chinese and international history offers timely and challenging perspectives on initiatives like “Chinese characteristics”, “The New Silk Road” and “One Belt, One Road” in broad historical context. __Global History with Chinese Characteristics__ analyses the feeble state capacity of Qing China questioning the so-called “High Qing” (shèng qīng 盛清) era’s economic prosperity as the political system was set into a “power paradox” or “supremacy dilemma”. This is a new thesis introduced by the author demonstrating that interventionist states entail weak governance. Macao and Marseille as a new case study aims to compare Mediterranean and South China markets to provide new insights into both modern eras’ rising trade networks, non-official institutions and interventionist impulses of autocratic states such as China’s Qing and Spain’s Bourbon empires. This open access book examines perceptions and dialogues between China and Europe by analysing strategic geopolitical sites which fostered commerce, consumption and socioeconomic networks between China and Europe through a particular case study: Macau, connecting with South China, and Marseille in Mediterranean Europe from 1680 to 1800. How did foreign merchant networks and trans-national communities of Macau and Marseille operate during the eighteenth century and contribute to somehow transfer respectively European and Chinese socio-cultural habits and forms in local population? What was the degree and channels of consumption of European goods in China and Chinese goods in Europe? Through these questions the book explores the bilateral Sino-European trade relations and considers how the trans-national dimension of exotic commodities changed tastes by creating a new type of global consumerism This open access book considers a pivotal era in Chinese history from a global perspective. This book’s insight into Chinese and international history offers timely and challenging perspectives on initiatives like “Chinese characteristics”, “The New Silk Road” and “One Belt, One Road” in broad historical context. Global History with Chinese Characteristics analyses the feeble state capacity of Qing China questioning the so-called “High Qing” (shèng qīng 盛清) era’s economic prosperity as the political system was set into a “power paradox” or “supremacy dilemma”. https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/28066 Front Matter ....Pages i-xxxv Introduction: The Implementation of the New Global History in China (Manuel Perez-Garcia)....Pages 1-22 The “Global History Paradox” in China: Sinocentred Approaches Along the Silk Road (Manuel Perez-Garcia)....Pages 23-68 The Mandate of Heaven, the Rule of the Emperor: Self-Sufficiency of the Middle Kingdom (Manuel Perez-Garcia)....Pages 69-121 Silver, Rogues, and Trade Networks: Sangleyes and Manila Galleons Connecting the Spanish Empire and Qing China (Manuel Perez-Garcia)....Pages 123-170 Conclusions (Manuel Perez-Garcia)....Pages 171-179 Back Matter ....Pages 181-244