Anglo-Chinese Encounters Before the Opium War

Anglo-Chinese Encounters Before the Opium War
Author: Xin Liu
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2022-08-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000637565

Anglo-Chinese Encounters Before the Opium War: A Tale of Two Empires Over Two Centuries studies the fascinating encounters between the two historic empires from Queen Elizabeth I’s first letter to the Ming Emperor Wanli in 1583, to Lord Palmerston’s letter to the Minister of China in 1840. Starting with Queen Elizabeth I’s letter to the Chinese Emperor and ending with the letter from Lord Palmerston to the Minister of China just before the Opium War, this book explores the long journey in between from cultural diplomacy to gunboat diplomacy. It interweaves the most known diplomatic efforts at the official level with the much unknown intellectual interactions at the people-to-people level, from missionaries to scholars, from merchants to travelers and from artists to scientists. This book adopts a novel "mirror" approach by pairing and comparing people, texts, commodities, artworks, architecture, ideologies, operating systems and world views of the two empires. Using letters, gifts and traded goods as fulcrums, and by adopting these unique lenses, it puts China into the world history narratives to contextualise Anglo-Chinese relations, thus providing a fresh analysis of the surviving evidence. Xin Liu casts a new light on understanding the Sino-centric and Anglo-centric world views in driving the complex relations between the two empires, and the reversals of power shifts that are still unfolding today. The book is not intended for specialists in history, but a general audience wishing to learn more about China’s historical engagement with the world.

Anglo-Chinese Encounters Since 1800

Anglo-Chinese Encounters Since 1800
Author: Wang Gungwu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2003-04-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521534130

A penetrating and sophisticated 2003 account of the relationship between China and imperial Britain.

Creating the Opium War

Creating the Opium War
Author: Hao Gao
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2019-12-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 152613344X

Creating the Opium War examines British imperial attitudes towards China during their early encounters from the Macartney embassy to the outbreak of the Opium War – a deeply consequential event which arguably reshaped relations between China and the West in the next century. It makes the first attempt to bring together the political history of Sino-western relations and the cultural studies of British representations of China, as a new way of explaining the origins of the conflict. The book focuses on a crucial period (1792–1840), which scholars such as Kitson and Markley have recently compared in importance to that of American and French Revolutions. By examining a wealth of primary materials, some in more detail than ever before, this study reveals how the idea of war against China was created out of changing British perceptions of the country.

The Great Reversal

The Great Reversal
Author: Kerry Brown
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2024-07-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300272928

A vivid history of the relationship between Britain and China, from 1600 to the present The relationship between Britain and China has shaped the modern world. Chinese art, philosophy and science have had a profound effect upon British culture, while the long history of British exploitation is still bitterly remembered in China today. But how has their interaction changed over time? From the early days of the East India Company through the violence of the Opium Wars to present-day disputes over Hong Kong, Kerry Brown charts this turbulent and intriguing relationship in full. Britain has always sought to dominate China economically and politically, while China's ideas and exports--from tea and Chinoiserie to porcelain and silk--have continued to fascinate in the west. But by the later twentieth century, the balance of power began to shift in China's favour, with global consequences. Brown shows how these interactions changed the world order--and argues that an understanding of Britain's relationship with China is now more vital than ever.

Embassies to China

Embassies to China
Author: Michael Keevak
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2017-06-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 9811039720

This text is a timely and wide-ranging study providing essential background to the development of global modernity through the European encounter with China. Considering differing notions of peace, empire, trade, religion, and diplomacy as touchstones in the relations between China and Europe on mutuality, the book examines five encounters with France, Portugal, Holland, the pope, and Russia between 1248 and 1720, and reflects on concepts that the West took for granted but which did not successfully cross over into the Chinese world. This cutting edge text provides key insights into the cultural and political conflict which lay at the heart of early Chinese-European relations, as the West's understanding of the truth and appropriateness of its cultural norms was confronted by China's norms and beliefs.

Two English-Language Translators of Jin Ping Mei

Two English-Language Translators of Jin Ping Mei
Author: Shuangjin Xiao
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2024-07-31
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1040085326

Two English-Language Translators of Jin Ping Mei examines English translations of the Ming novel Jin Ping Mei by translators from different historical periods within the Anglophone world. Drawing upon theoretical insights from translation studies, literary criticism, and cultural studies, the book explores the treatment of salient features of the novel in translation, including cultural representation, narratological elements, gender-specific motifs, and (homo)sexual themes. Through literary re-imagining and artistic re-creation, Egerton transforms a complex and sprawling narrative into a popular modern middlebrow novel, making it readily accessible within Western genres. Roy’s interlinear and annotated translation transcends the mere retelling of a vivid story for its unwavering emphasis on every single detail of the original, becoming a portal to the Ming past. It stands as a testament to the significance of translation as a medium for understanding the legacy of the late Ming and the socio-cultural dynamics shaping that period in Chinese history. This book will be a useful reference for scholars and research students within the fields of literary translation studies and translated Chinese literature, particularly Ming- Qing fiction. The book will also appeal to students and researchers studying Jin Ping Mei’s translation and reception in the West.

The History and Politics of Star Wars

The History and Politics of Star Wars
Author: Chris Kempshall
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2022-08-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351382705

This book provides the first detailed and comprehensive examination of all the materials making up the Star Wars franchise relating to the portrayal and representation of real-world history and politics. Drawing on a variety of sources, including films, published interviews with directors and actors, novels, comics, and computer games, this volume explores the ways in which historical and contemporary events have been repurposed within Star Wars. It focuses on key themes such as fascism and the Galactic Empire, the failures of democracy, the portrayal of warfare, the morality of the Jedi, and the representations of sex, gender, and race. Through these themes, this study highlights the impacts of the fall of the Soviet Union, the War on Terror, and the failures of the United Nations upon the ‘galaxy far, far away’. By analysing and understanding these events and their portrayal within Star Wars, it shows how the most popular media franchise in existence aims to speak about wider contemporary events and issues. The History and Politics of Star Wars is useful for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars of a variety of disciplines such as transmedia studies, science fiction, cultural studies, and world history and politics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Jewish Self-Defense in South America

Jewish Self-Defense in South America
Author: Raanan Rein
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2022-08-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 100064569X

Jewish Self-Defense in South America charts the ways in which Jewish youth in Argentina and Uruguay organized self-defense groups in the wake of an anti-Semitic wave that swept the Southern Cone in the 1960s. The kidnapping of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires in 1960 and his trial and execution in Israel in 1962, as well as the assassination of the Latvian war criminal Herberts Cukurs in Montevideo in 1965, provoked violent attacks by right-wing nationalist organizations against Jewish lives and property. Thousands of Jews decided to teach the anti-Semitic bullies a lesson and make it very clear that shedding Jewish blood would not go unpunished, that Jews were no longer passive victims. The central role that the State of Israel and its envoys played in organizing, instructing, and training self-defense activists highlights the special ties between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora. Based on more than 120 interviews with former activists of self-defense, ex-Mossad officers and veteran Israeli diplomats, as well as on archival research, this is a pioneering study on ethnicity and diaspora in a time of growing political violence in South America. This book is a valuable study for scholars and students researching Jewish history and Latin American history.

Citizens and Refugees

Citizens and Refugees
Author: Joachim C. Häberlen
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2022-07-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000623750

Following the stories of two dozen refugees from Syria and Afghanistan in 2015, Citizens and Refugees argues that we need to include the histories of these countries, notably the Syrian Revolution, into narratives of the refugee crisis. The book thus challenges a framing of the crisis that usually begins only with the moment of people fleeing. The stories it tells show refugees as citizens with a political voice engaged in struggles for participation and democracy, rather than as people in need of rescuing and integrating into new societies. It equally examines the much-celebrated German welcoming culture of 2015, arguing that it silenced political voices of those fleeing to Germany. Based on personal stories and the author’s intimate knowledge of the German welcoming culture, Citizens and Refugees intervenes into political debates about the viability of democracy. Overall, the importance of this volume stems from its suggestion that we would do well to listen to the voice of those coming to Europe as refugees. Based on both personal stories and historical analysis, Citizens and Refugees is the ideal resource for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in migration studies and the history of Europe and the Middle East.

Christianity, the Sovereign Subject, and Ethnic Nationalism in Colonial Korea

Christianity, the Sovereign Subject, and Ethnic Nationalism in Colonial Korea
Author: Hannah Amaris Roh
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2022-08-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000636402

One of the first philosophical approaches to the study of Korea’s ethnic nationalism, Christianity, the Sovereign Subject, and Ethnic Nationalism in Colonial Korea traces the impact of Christianity in the formation of Korean national identity, outlining the metaphysical origins of the concept of the sovereign subject. This monograph takes a meta-historical approach and engages the moral questions of Korean historiography amid the fraught politics of narrating colonialism and the postcolonial period. Indebted to Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of deconstruction and his framework of "hauntology," this monograph unpacks the ethical consequences of ethnic nationalism, exploring how Western metaphysics has haunted imaginations of freedom in colonial Korea. While most studies of modern Korean nationalism and (post)colonialism have taken a cultural, literary, or social scientific approach, this book draws on the thought of Jacques Derrida to offer an innovative intellectual history of Korea’s colonial period. By deconstructing the metaphysical claims of turn-of-the-century Protestant missionaries and early modern Korean intellectuals, the book showcases the relevance of Derrida’s philosophical method in the study of modern Korean history. This is a must read for scholars interested in Derrida, historiography, and Korean history.