From Early Tang Court Debates to China’s Peaceful Rise

This volume presents new topics from Chinese history of the last 1400 years from a broad range of fields such as politics, religion, society, economy and culture. The refreshing eight articles give new insights on events as different as the inter-religious court debates of the Tang, the Jiaqing reform of the Qing, the China display on the Chicago World Fair in 1893, Christianity and state-building in Chaozhou, the Taiwan salt trade, Chinese indentured labour in World War I in France, China’s rise and current internet regulation. This book highlights the complexity of multi-level interaction of different agents in the center and periphery of China, inside and outside China, contributing to intellectual debates, political and social dynamics, economy structure, modernization, identity building and interaction with the outside.

Friederike Assandri is a Research Associate at the Department of Sinology, University of Heidelberg and also at the Center for the study of Chinese Characters and its Application, ECNU, Shanghai. Assandri is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Chinese Philosophy. Dora Martins is coordinator at the Centre for Politics and International Relations of the Portugese Institute of Sinology.

Review: This book brings to life an unexplored subject in a critically important period of Chinese history in strikingly original way. It sheds light on the current debate of China’s rise to a great power status in the 21st century. I recommend From Early Tang Court Debates to China’s Peaceful Rise with enthusiasm. Suisheng Zhao, Editor of the Journal of Contemporary China and Professor of International Studies, University of Denver.