Joseph W. Esherick - China: How the Empire Fell

China

The Qing dynasty was Chinas last, and it created an empire of unprecedented size and prosperity. However, in 1911 the empire collapsed within a few short months, and China embarked on a revolutionary course that lasted through most of the twentieth century. The 1911 Revolution ended two millennia of imperial rule and established the Republic of China, but dissatisfaction with the early republic fuelled further revolutionary movements, each intended to be more thoroughgoing than the last, from the National Revolution of the 1920s, to the Communist Revolution, and finally the Cultural Revolution.

On the centenary of the 1911 Revolution, Chinese scholars debated the causes and significance of the empires collapse, and this book presents 12 of the most important contributions. Rather than focusing on Sun Yat-sens relatively weak and divided revolutionary movement, as much previous scholarship has, these studies examine the internal dynamics of political and socio-economic change in China. The chapters reveal how reforms in education, army organization, and constitutional rule created new social forces and political movements that undermined dynastic legitimacy within China and on its frontiers. Through detailed analyses, using new archival, memoir, diary, and newspaper sources, the authors cast new light on the sudden collapse of an empire that many thought was at last embarked on a road to reform and national rejuvenation.

China: How the empire fell will be of huge interest to students and scholars of modern Chinese history as well as those of contemporary China.

Joseph W. Esherick is Emeritus Professor of History, University of California, San Diego, USA.

C.X. George Wei is Professor and Head of the Department of History at the University of Macau.

Asias transformations

Edited by Mark Selden

Cornell University, USA

The books in this series explore the political, social, economic and cultural consequences of Asias transformations in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The series emphasizes the tumultuous interplay of local, national, regional, and global forces as Asia bids to become the hub of the world economy. While focusing on the contemporary, it also looks back to analyze the antecedents of Asias contested rise.

This series comprises several strands:

Asias transformations

Titles include:

1 Debating Human Rights

Critical essays from the United States and Asia

Edited by Peter Van Ness

Hong Kongs History

State and society under colonial rule

Edited by Tak- Wing Ngo

3 Japans Comfort Women

Sexual slavery and prostitution during World War II and the US occupation

Yuki Tanaka

4 Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy

Carl A. Trocki

5 Chinese Society

Change, conflict and resistance

Edited by Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden

6 Maos Children in the New China

Voices from the Red Guard generation

Yarong Jiang and David Ashley

7 Remaking the Chinese State

Strategies, society and security

Edited by Chien-min Chao and Bruce J. Dickson

8 Korean Society

Civil society, democracy and the state

Edited by Charles K. Armstrong

9 The Making of Modern Korea

Adrian Buzo

10 The Resurgence of East Asia

500, 150 and 50 year perspectives

Edited by Giovanni Arrighi, Takeshi Hamashita and Mark Selden

11 Chinese Society, second edition

Change, conflict and resistance

Edited by Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden

12 Ethnicity in Asia

Edited by Colin Mackerras

13 The Battle for Asia

From decolonization to globalization

Mark T. Berger

14 State and Society in 21st Century China

Edited by Peter Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen

15 Japans Quiet Transformation

Social change and civil society in the 21st century

Jeff Kingston

16 Confronting the Bush Doctrine

Critical views from the Asia-Pacific

Edited by Mel Gurtov and Peter Van Ness

17 China in War and Revolution, 18951949

Peter Zarrow

18 The Future of US-Korean Relations

The imbalance of power

Edited by John Feffer

19 Working in China

Ethnographies of labor and workplace transformations

Edited by Ching Kwan Lee

20 Korean Society, second edition

Civil society, democracy and the state

Edited by Charles K. Armstrong

21 Singapore

The state and the culture of excess

Souchou Yao

22 Pan-Asianism in Modern Japanese History

Colonialism, regionalism and borders

Edited by Sven Saaler and J. Victor Koschmann

23 The Making of Modern Korea, second edition

Adrian Buzo

24 Re-writing Culture in Taiwan

Edited by Fang-long Shih, Stuart Thompson, and Paul-Franois Tremlett

25 Reclaiming Chinese Society

The new social activism

Edited by You-tien Hsing and Ching Kwan Lee

26 Girl Reading Girl in Japan

Edited by Tomoko Aoyama and Barbara Hartley

27 Chinese Politics

State, society and the market

Edited by Peter Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen

28 Chinese Society, third edition

Change, conflict and resistance

Edited by Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden

29 Mapping Modernity in Shanghai

Space, gender, and visual culture in the Sojourners City, 185398

Samuel Y. Liang

30 Minorities and Multiculturalism in Japanese Education

An interactive perspective

Edited by Ryoko Tsuneyoshi, Kaori H. Okano and Sarane Boocock

31 Japans Wartime Medical Atrocities

Comparative inquiries in science, history, and ethics

Edited by Jing-Bao Nie, Nanyan Guo, Mark Selden and Arthur Kleinman

32 State and Society in Modern Rangoon

Donald M. Seekins

33 Learning Chinese, Turning Chinese

Becoming sinophone in a globalised world

Edward McDonald

34 Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism

Spectacle, politics and history

Hong Kal

35 Popular Culture and the State in East and Southeast Asia

Edited by Nissim Otmazgin and Eyal Ben Ari

36 Japans Outcaste Abolition

The struggle for national inclusion and the making of the modern state

Noah Y. McCormack

37 The Market and Temple Fairs of Rural China

Red fire

Gene Cooper

38 The Role of American NGOs in Chinas Modernization

Invited influence

Norton Wheeler

39 State, Society and the Market in Contemporary Vietnam

Property, power and values

Edited by Hue-Tam Ho Tai and Mark Sidel

40 East Asia Beyond the History Wars

Confronting the ghosts of violence

Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Morris Low, Leonid Petrov and Timothy Yun Hui Tsu

41 China

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Joseph W. Esherick and C.X. George Wei

Asias great cities

Each volume aims to capture the heartbeat of the contemporary city from multiple perspectives emblematic of the authors own deep familiarity with the distinctive faces of the city, its history, society, culture, politics and economics, and its evolving position in national, regional and global frameworks. While most volumes emphasize urban developments since the Second World War, some pay close attention to the legacy of the