Here in 'China' I Dwell

Ge Zhaoguang, M.A. (1984), Peking University, is Professor of History at Fudan University, Shanghai. He is widely published in Chinese, where he is especially well known for his three-volume 《中国思想史》(Zhongguo sixiang shi, An Intellectual History of China) (Fudan University Press, 2001).

Jesse Field, Ph.D. (2012), University of Minnesota, is a teacher, translator and writer in Beijing.

Qin Fang, Ph.D. (2012), University of Minnesota, is Associate Professor of History at Capital Normal University, Beijing. She is interested in women’s history and urban studies of modern China. She is currently working on a manuscript entitled “In Search for Respectability: The Making of Women’s Education in Treaty Ports of China, 1898-1912.”

"Here in ‘China’ I Dwell should be very useful to experts in Chinese history as well as all college levels of students and the leisure reader, who is interested in studying Chinese academic history."
– Augustine Adu-Frimpong, Southern University and A&M College, in African and Asian Studies, 16.2 (2017).

"In Here in "China" I Dwell, Ge Zhaoguang [offers] a historiographical account of the formation of Chinese historical narratives in light of China's interaction with the outside world. [...] the translators have made intelligible an astonishing array of texts from Chinese history, while conveying Ge's self-reflexive engagement with Chinese, Japanese, European, and North American scholarship on China and Asian history."
– Lin Hang, Hangzhou Normal University, in Monumenta Serica:Journal of Oriental Studies, 66.1.

"There is a special discussion of the influence of Japanese historians on the concept of China and its borders, including the nature of their sources, cultural and religious and more. In Ge's comparative account, a new portrait of Chinese historical narratives, along with the views and assumptions implicit in these narratives, emerges in the context of East Asia, a similarly constructed concept with its own multitudes of frontiers and peoples."
(worldtrade.com)

Series Editors’ Foreword
Preface

Introduction: “China” as Problem and the Problem of “China”
1 From William Skinner to Robert Hartwell: “Locality” Leaves the Unity of China in Doubt
2 Thinking from the Perspective of Asia: When “China” Fades into Asia
3 The Position of Taiwan: Concentric-circle Theory
4 The Kingdom of the Khans: The Challenge of “Chinese History” for the Mongol Yuan and the Manchu Qing
5 Postmodern History: Rescue What History from the Nation?
6 How Can We Understand the Historical China in Chinese History?
Conclusion: History, Culture and Politics—Three Dimensions of
China Studies
Addendum

Chapter 1 The Appearance of “China” Consciousness during the Song Dynasty: On One of the Origins of Modern Nationalist Ideology
1 A Discourse of China, a Discourse of Orthodoxy: Definite Emergence of China Consciousness
2 The Gap between Ideals and Practical Politics: All under Heaven, the Four Barbarians, Court Tribute, and Enemy Kingdom
3 China: The Emergence of ‘Borders’
4 Views of Nation, State and Culture: Anti-Barbarian Ideology and the Establishment of a Transmissible Orthodoxy
5 Of Han, of China: What is Han and what is Chinese?

Chapter 2 Memories of Foreign Lands in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Illustrations of Tributaries, and Travel Accounts: Chinese Sources of Knowledge Regarding Foreign Lands before and after Matteo Ricci
1 The Contrast between Imagination and Knowledge: The Imagination of Foreign Lands
2 Three Sources Linked to the Construction of Imaginary Foreign Lands: Travel Accounts, Zhigongtu, and Myths, Legends and Proverbs
3 To Imagination Add More Imagination; To Stories Add More Story: The Kingdom of Women, the Kingdom of Dogs, and the Corpse-Head Barbarians
4 The Pre-Matteo Ricci Imaginary Foreign Country: Historical Memory from Classical Knowledge
5 Post-Matteo Ricci: From “All under Heaven” to “Ten Thousand States”

Chapter 3 Ancient Maps as the History of Ideas 77
1 Margin and Center: Imagining the Orient in Old European Maps of the World
2 From All under Heaven to Ten Thousand Countries
3 Buddhist Maps: Imagining Different Kinds of Worlds
4 Chinese on the Inside, Barbarians on the Outside: The Case of the Ming Dynasty Naval Defense Map
5 Understanding Ming Concepts of “Private” and “Public” from Gazetteer Maps
Conclusion

Chapter 4 The Real and the Imaginary: Who Decides What “Asia” Means? On “Asianism” in Japan and China from the Late Qing to the Republican Era
1 Asianism in Modern Japan
2 The Complex Reaction to “Asianism” in Late-Qing and EarlyRepublican China
3 Multiple Visions of the World: Differences between China and Japan
4 Nationalism and Cosmpolitanism, or Tradition and Modernity

Chapter 5 Between Nation and History: Starting from the Japanese: Debates on the Relationship between Chinese Daoism, Japanese Shintō and the Tennō System
Foreword: Small Questions Lead to Bigger Questions
1 A Debate between Two Japanese Scholar
2 Tsuda Sōkichi and His Evaluations Regarding Chinese Daoism
3 Tsuda Sōkichi’s Dilemma: Influence or Borrowing?
4 Ancient Layer after Ancient Layer: Regarding Shintō and the Tennō
5 Chinese Influence: New Views in Japanese Academia
6 And on to Goguryeo? A Roadmap of the Dissemination of Daoism in East Asia
7 Scholars of China Studies Joining the Debate: Miyazaki Ichisada’s Theories
8 The Differences between Chinese Daoism and Japanese Shintōism
Conclusion: Behind the Debates about Daoism, Shintōism,
and the Tennō System

Chapter 6 Where are the Borders? Starting with the Context of the Study of “Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Korea” in Japan at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Foreword: The Question
1 Japan’s Interest in the Study of “Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Korea” and the Formation of East Asian History
2 Victory over Europe: One Motivation for Japanese Historians to Study Chinese Borders
3 The “Qing State is Not a State” Thesis: The Historical Background and Political Sensibility of the Study of “Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Korea” in Japan
4 Frontiers or Borders: How to Define China in History and in Reality

Chapter 7 From the Western Regions to the Eastern Sea: Formations, Methods and Problems in a New Historical World
Foreword: Spaces for Inter-Civilization Mixing: The Mediterranean, the Western Regions, and the Eastern Sea
1 The Xiyu: From Modern European Study of the East and Japanese Study of the East to the Great Discoveries at Dunhuang
2 The Donghai (Eastern Seas): Mixing and Separating of Traditional Civilizations in East Asia
3 The Emphasis of Research and Research Methods: Differences and Similarities between Studies of the Xiyu and Studies of the Donghai

Conclusion: Predicting the Currents: New Perspectives on Historical Studies
Foreword: What Does the History of Academia Tell Us?
1 International Perspective: From “Studies of Northern Barbarians” to “Looking at China from its Borders”
2 The Chinese Position: Comparing with Chinese Studies Outside China
3 Intersecting Cultural History
4 Conclusion: New Materials, New Methods, New Paradigms: Prospects for Culture and History Studies

Index

For those interested in Chinese history and historiography, Ge’s contribution illuminates the shape of Chinese historical narrative-making, and points the way to a more sophisticated narrative to come.