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Abstract In this illustrated presentation, historian and blogger Jeffrey Wasserstrom will expand upon some of the arguments in his latest book, China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2010), and also try to place things that have happened during the eventful year since its completion into historical and comparative perspective. What is most familiar and what is most novel about recent developments in China's relations with other countries? How do the latest batch of high-profile books on the PRC, such as When China Rules the World, carry forward or diverge from longstanding patterns in Western thinking about Chinese themes? Can looking back to Chinese protest movements of the last century and even the Xinhai Revolution whose centenary falls in 2011 help us make sense of present-day outbursts of unrest? How can placing China and India side-by-side aid or hinder making sense of contemporary Chinese phenomena? These are the kinds of questions to be explored, in a talk that will move back as far as the Boxer Crisis of 1900 and as far forward in time as news stories from the start of 2011. Jeffrey Wasserstrom is Chair of the History Department at the University of California, Irvine, and the Editor of the Journal of Asian Studies. He is the author of books such as Global Shanghai, 1850-2010 (Routledge, 2009) and China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2010) and has also edited or co-edited several volumes, including China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), which includes material from the "China Beat" electronic magazine that he co-founded. His essays have appeared in academic journals such as China Quarterly, Wall Street Journal, TLS, and Time and Newsweek. He blogs regularly for the Huffington Post.  |
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