Demystifying China

For westerners, China's history is often reduced to a choice between timeless Confucian ideals or incomprehensible barbarisms such as footbinding or mass slaughter, fueled by generalizations such as "China has five thousand years of history," "China was a Confucian society," "Chinese women were victims," "China is a communist country," and many more. But China is now too globally important to allow such oversimplifications to continue unchallenged, and this engaging and deeply knowledgeable volume counters them vigorously. In concise and accessible style, the contributors scrutinize a range of historical misconceptions that have ramifications for the present and future of China and its relations with the rest of the world. They consider how misunderstandings have arisen and present more sophisticated and nuanced interpretations. Readers will learn how numerous popular beliefs about China's history are mistaken and what new interpretations can help build the more accurate understandings of present-day China that we so badly need. By explicitly addressing common misconceptions, the book persuades readers to reexamine their assumptions about China's history-and thus China in general-and begin to see it as a real rather than largely imagined place.
Contributions by: Elif Akçetin, Bridie Andrews, Tim Barrett, Felix Boecking, Michael C. Brose, Marjorie Dryburgh, Imre Galambos, Stanley E. Henning, Christian Hess, Clara Wing-chung Ho, Judd Kinzley, Fabio Lanza, Peter Lorge, Julia Lovell, Rana Mitter, Barbara Mittler, Ruth Mostern, Peter C. Perdue, Hai Ren, Andres Rodriguez, Tansen Sen, Elliot Sperling, Naomi Standen, Wasana Wongsurawat, and Ling Zhang.

Naomi Standen is professor of medieval history at the University of Birmingham.

Preface
Rana Mitter
Introduction: The Creation of History in China
Naomi Standen
Part I: Images of an Ancient and United Nation
Chapter 1: The Chinese
Peter C. Perdue
Chapter 2: The Great Wall
Peter Lorge
Chapter 3: Foreign Conquerors of China
Naomi Standen
Chapter 4: Confucius: The Key to Understanding China
Tim Barrett
Part II: Cultural Traditions
Chapter 5: The "Decline" of Buddhism in China
Tansen Sen
Chapter 6: Islam in China
Michael Brose
Chapter 7: Chinese Medicine
Bridie Andrews
Chapter 8: Traditional Chinese and the Environment
Ling Zhang
Chapter 9: Chinese Martial Arts
Stanley Henning
Chapter 10: Women in Chinese History
Clara Wing-chung Ho
Part III: Imperial China
Chapter 11: China's Age of Seafaring
Ruth Mostern
Chapter 12: Civil Service Examinations
Elif Akçetin
Chapter 13: Xinjiang at the Center
Judd Kinzley
Chapter 14: Tibet
Elliot Sperling
Chapter 15: Modern China's Borders
Andres Rodriguez
Chapter 16: The Opium War and China's "Century of Humiliation"
Julia Lovell
Part IV: Making Modern China
Chapter 17: Sun Yat-sen
Wasana Wongsurawat
Chapter 18: Republican China under the Nationalists, ca. 1925-1945
Felix Boecking
Chapter 19: The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party
Christian Hess
Chapter 20: Simplified Characters
Imre Galambos
Chapter 21: The One-Child Policy
Barbara Mittler
Chapter 22: The Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976
Marjorie Dryburgh
Chapter 23: China's Political System
Hai Ren
Chapter 24: Tiananmen 1989
Fabio Lanza