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Lost Modernities
China, Vietnam, Korea, and the Hazards of World History
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Alexander Woodside
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2006
About this book
Woodside offers an overview of the bureaucratic politics of preindustrial China, Vietnam, and Korea. He focuses on the political and administrative theory of the three mandarinates and their long experimentation with governments recruited in part through meritocratic civil service examinations.
Reviews
In a fresh and provocative book, Alexander Woodside challenges us to rethink the meaning of modernity. Using three countries that share a Confucian heritage and have often been considered to lag behind the West in developing modern socio-political systems, he illuminates how East Asian thinkers grappled with many issues that later became salient in Western political thought. Lost Modernities places East Asia squarely within current discussions of global history, and will generate lively debate.
-- Hue-Tam Ho Tai, author of Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution
-- Hue-Tam Ho Tai, author of Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution
With pungent wit and panoramic scope, Woodside punctures Western pretensions by showing that East Asian societies anticipated contemporary controversies over bureaucracy, meritocracy, and social welfare. By demolishing myths of modernity, Asian and Western, he brilliantly illuminates comparative global history and social science. Few books on Asia today are as provocative, informative, and valuable as this one.
-- Peter C. Perdue, author of China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia
-- Peter C. Perdue, author of China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia
A tour de force about government in East and Southeast Asia before capitalism and industrialization. With wry wit and considerable erudition, Woodside leads us through the global and regional issues germane to a truly comparative history of the civil service. This remarkable foray through precocious political modernities in preindustrial China, Korea, and Vietnam will provoke Asianists and Europeanists alike.
-- Benjamin A. Elman, author of On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550-1900
-- Benjamin A. Elman, author of On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550-1900
Works by Alexander Woodside are not merely to be read. They are to be studied. I have yet to read a book, essay, or review by him that did not deserve a second reading....Lost Modernities is no exception. This is history and historiography at its very best, leavened by humor and stunning breadth.
-- Joshua A. Fogel Chinese Historical Review
-- Joshua A. Fogel Chinese Historical Review
This compact study is original and provocative. Its comparative approach is an inspiration to all who work on Asian states past and present. It confronts alternative modernities in new and sophisticated ways. And, not least, it is a contribution to the history of governance, notably on the need for, and the limits of, meritocratic principles in public management.
-- Wang Gungwu Pacifica Affairs
-- Wang Gungwu Pacifica Affairs
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
July 1, 2009
eBook ISBN:
9780674045347
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
160
eBook ISBN:
9780674045347
Audience(s) for this book
Professional and scholarly;
