Becoming Chinese : Passages to Modernity and Beyond

This volume evaluates the dual roles of war and modernity in the transformation of 20th-century Chinese identity.

The contributors, all leading researchers, argue that war, no less than revolution, deserves attention as a major force in the making of 20th-century Chinese history.

Further, they show that modernity in material culture and changes in intellectual consciousness should serve as a twin foci of a new wave of scholarly analysis.

Examining in particular the rise of modern Chinese cities and the making of the Chinese nation-state, the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume of cultural history provide new ways of thinking about China's modernizing state and an industrializing economy weakened the Chinese bourgeoisie and undercut the individual's quest for autonomy.