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This volume explores how individuals use moral agency to craft the moral dispositions and moral capabilities needed for living well-lived lives. It draws on Eastern and Western philosophical and ethical traditions to formulate and address key issues concerning character development and moral agency.In both Eastern and Western traditions, the complexities of shaping an individual's moral agency focus on sustained processes of inner self-cultivation. The chapters in this volume highlight the ways in which one is to manage and direct one's desires and aspirations, and what is to count as the source of guidance for a well-lived life. They engage with key figures and traditions in the history of Eastern and Western philosophy, including Confucian, Buddhist, and Western sources, from Aristotle to Kant. The juxtaposition of sources from the different parts of the world highlights striking similarities and significant contrasts and provides rich conceptual resources for further exploration of these issues. The volume provides a broader, deeper pursuit of central issues of moral psychology and ethics in ways that highlight the inexhaustible resources in these traditions. The focus on character is a way to draw together perspectives on ethical life, theories of human agency, views of fundamental, life-guiding values, and relations between individuals and society and how persons see their place in the world.Moral Agency in Eastern and Western Thought will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on virtue ethics, moral psychology, comparative philosophy, and history of philosophy.

For the Chinese, the drive toward growing political and economic power is part of an ongoing effort to restore China's past greatness and remove the lingering memories of history's humiliations. This widely praised book explores the 1500–1800 period before China's decline, when the country was viewed as a leading world culture and power. Europe, by contrast, was in the early stages of emerging from provincial to international status while the United States was still an uncharted wilderness. D. E. Mungello argues that this earlier era, ironically, may contain more relevance for today than the more recent past. Building on the author's decades of research and teaching, this compelling book illustrates the vital importance of history to readers trying to understand China's renewed rise.

This book explores the historical interactions between Beijing and the West before the Opium War. It focuses on the experiences of Western travellers, missionaries, and envoys who visited Beijing during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.As the capital of Imperial China since the Yuan dynasty, Beijing has been central to communication between China and the West. The study uses first-hand historical materials such as travelogues, memoirs, letters, Ming and Qing archives, and scholarly works from both the West and China. It examines their journeys to Beijing, their lives in the city, and their interactions with imperial officials and ordinary people. The book reconstructs Western perceptions of Beijing and their observations of its architecture, customs, geography, and China's history, culture, and political system. It also addresses important historical issues in Sino-Western relations, including the controversy over Chinese rites between Beijing and the Vatican, attempts to trade with Beijing, sinological studies, and intelligence gathering. The insights gained greatly enhance our understanding of the history of cultural exchange between China and the West.The book will appeal to a wide readership interested in the history of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the history of Beijing, Sino-Western relations, and international Sinology.

A concise new history of a century of struggles to define Asian identity and express alternatives to European forms of universalism.The balance of global power changed profoundly over the course of the twentieth century, above all with the economic and political rise of Asia. Asia after Europe is a bold new interpretation of the period, focusing on the conflicting and overlapping ways in which Asians have conceived their bonds and their roles in the world. Tracking the circulation of ideas and people across colonial and national borders, Sugata Bose explores developments in Asian thought, art, and politics that defied Euro-American models and defined Asianness as a locus of solidarity for all humanity.Impressive in scale, yet driven by the stories of fascinating and influential individuals, Asia after Europe examines early intimations of Asian solidarity and universalism preceding Japan's victory over Russia in 1905; the revolutionary collaborations of the First World War and its aftermath, when Asian universalism took shape alongside Wilsonian internationalism and Bolshevism; the impact of the Great Depression and Second World War on the idea of Asia; and the persistence of forms of Asian universalism in the postwar period, despite the consolidation of postcolonial nation-states on a European model.Diverse Asian universalisms were forged and fractured through phases of poverty and prosperity, among elites and common people, throughout the span of the twentieth century. Noting the endurance of nationalist rivalries, often tied to religious exclusion and violence, Bose concludes with reflections on the continuing potential of political thought beyond European definitions of reason, nation, and identity.

This monograph provides an analysis and contextualization of an extraordinarily successful book, the History of the Great Kingdom of China (Rome 1585), by the Spanish Augustinian friar Juan González de Mendoza (1545–1618). Within a few years, this book had reached 30 editions and had been translated into several languages, including English. Mendoza's chronicle shaped the late Renaissance interpretation of China across Europe. It had its origin in an embassy to emperor Wanli of China sent by Philip II, ruler of the Spanish and Portuguese overseas empires in America and Asia. Reconstructing the biography of González de Mendoza with new sources, this volume offers a systematic study of his account of late Ming China, analyzing its reception and influence both in Spain and elsewhere in Europe.The Chronicler of China is divided into five chapters, covering the Portuguese and Castilian sources that recorded the earliest contacts with China in the sixteenth century, the figure of Mendoza as an ethnographical and political writer, the building of his chronicle on China, the dialogue with his sources and, finally, the footprint of Mendoza's book in the European Republic of Letters.This book, the most complete study on the Augustinian Mendoza and his historical and ethnographical work to date, contributes to a wider understanding of the Iberian contribution to sixteenth-century travel writing and the Western knowledge of China. It will appeal to scholars and students alike interested in the early modern interpretation of China in Europe.

World history suffers from a paucity of clearly articulated, convincing explanations. While the rise of postmodernism and challenges to Eurocentrism did lead to some important correctives, the pendulum has swung too far the other direction, with a corresponding danger of ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater'. We need careful, theoretically informed debates about ways of organizing world history. What constitutes a good historical explanation? What should guide historians to choose relevant facts? Which theoretical schools could be made useful, and to what ends? These questions are especially relevant to the main topic of this book: the ‘great divergence'between the west and the rest of the world, and how this historical rupture is to be explained. The book provides extensive critical analyses of some of the key claims in world history, analyzing their strengths as well as their major weaknesses—too often rooted in insufficient familiarity of historians with theories they discard. It also historicizes the field and the debates to partly account for what caused some theories to become more influential and others to fall into oblivion—despite the fact that the more influential frameworks are seriously flawed and some of the more marginalized ideas are more coherent and plausible. The book offers insights regarding the theoretical and political relevance of older debates about the transition to capitalism and historical materialism. Three major schools of thought in world history are critically examined through an in-depth theoretical and comparative analysis that has not been undertaken elsewhere: the so-called ‘California School', World Systems Analysis, and Marxist theories of history, capitalism, and the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Murphy argues that, despite some of the more recent criticisms of older approaches to world history, the older theories remain indispensable for the writing of world history and for coming to terms with issues of global poverty, inequality and eco-catastrophe.

To form a truer portrait of Northeast Asian perspectives on modernity, this book presents a broad range of analyses from philosophical and political-philosophical scholars specializing in the region.The book considers the encounter between'Western'modernity and'Eastern'tradition not as a simple clash of cultures, but as a generative and hybridizing process of negotiation. It examines the concrete manifestations of modernity in various intellectual and political movements that attempted to radically restructure Northeast Asian societies. And through these situated perspectives, it rethinks and redefines the idea of'modernity'itself, challenging and presenting alternatives to Western-centric thinking on the topic.This book will be of particular interest to political philosophers, political theorists, comparative philosophers, regional specialists in East Asia, and all scholars grappling with the perplexities of global'modernity.'

A Systematic Theology from East Asia: Jung Young Lee's Biblical-Cultural Trinity considers the Trinitarian theology of Jung Young Lee, a twentieth-century Korean American theologian, unique for being based on the Bible but also inspired by the Book of Changes, a classical text from East Asian culture with wide appeal. This monograph examines the Christian scriptural-traditional and cultural roots of Lee's doctrines of God and the Trinity as twin pillars of his systematic theological system bearing out God's nature, purposes, and guidance for humanity and the world. In addition, this book outlines the autobiographical milieu of Lee's theology, its contribution to three distinct fields of Trinitarian doctrine (immanent-economic trinitarianism, social Trinity theory, and Cappadocian trinitarianism), and culminates in an assessment of Lee as a systematic theologian from East Asia, comparing Lee with other Asian American theologians.

Given the increasing presence of non-Western nations in global affairs, Hiro Katsumata and Hiroki Kusano explore their responses to the backlash taking place in the West against the global spread of liberalism – against the global spread of free trade, multilateral institutions, and liberal-democratic politics. Katsumata and Kusano concentrate on the cases of Egypt, Brazil, Japan, ASEAN members, Russia, and China. Mounted by these non-Western nations are three kinds of responses: illiberal bandwagoning, counter-backlash, and thirdway charting. Each of these responses inevitably has significant consequences for the fate of the existing liberal international order established and sustained by the Western countries in the post-war era, either accelerating the collapse of this order by causing additional damage to it, or putting the brakes on its collapse by giving support to it.An invaluable resource for scholars in International Relations and Comparative Politics.

Focusing on the practice of journalism in modern China, this book studies the history of modern Chinese journalism and gives insights on its culture and value.Comprised of four chapters, this book revisits the development of the journalism industry after being introduced to China from the West, analysing the development of the profession in comparative perspective. The first three chapters explore the collision and integration of journalism as an imported product against the backcloth of the social culture of modern China and analyzes the modernization of Chinese journalism—in terms of news concept, public opinion and dissemination of newspapers. The final chapter discusses the constraints of modern Chinese journalism that can hinder true independence and freedom, including religious news publications, subsidies, pricing and the interaction of technology, systems and concepts. Discussions of characteristics of modern Chinese journalism also shed light on the development of contemporary Chinese journalism.The book will be a valuable reference for scholars and students of Chinese studies, journalism and communication studies, especially those interested in Chinese journalism and its history in the modern time.

Foreign Policy Best Book of 2023 Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2023 The “riveting” (The Economist), secret story of the hundred-year intelligence war between Russia and the West with lessons for our new superpower conflict with China.Spies is the history of the secret war that Russia and the West have been waging for a century. Espionage, sabotage, and subversion were the Kremlin's means to equalize the imbalance of resources between the East and West before, during, and after the Cold War. There was nothing “unprecedented” about Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. It was simply business as usual, new means used for old ends. The Cold War started long before 1945. But the West fought back after World War II, mounting its own shadow war, using disinformation, vast intelligence networks, and new technologies against the Soviet Union. Spies is a “deeply researched and artfully crafted” (Fiona Hill, deputy assistant to the US President) story of the best and worst of mankind: bravery and honor, treachery and betrayal. The narrative shifts across continents and decades, from the freezing streets of St. Petersburg in 1917 to the bloody beaches of Normandy; from coups in faraway lands to present-day Moscow where troll farms, synthetic bots, and weaponized cyber-attacks being launched woefully unprepared West. It is about the rise and fall of Eastern superpowers: Russia's past and present and the global ascendance of China. Mining hitherto secret archives in multiple languages, Calder Walton shows that the Cold War started earlier than commonly assumed, that it continued even after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, and that Britain and America's clandestine struggle with the Soviet government provided key lessons for countering China today. This “authoritative, sweeping” (Fredrik Logevall, Pulitzer Prize­–winning author of Embers of War) history, combined with practical takeaways for our current great power struggles, make Spies a unique and essential addition to the history of the Cold War and the unrolling conflict between the United States and China that will dominate the 21st century.

Kyoto School Philosophy in Comparative Perspective: Ideology, Ontology, Modernity presents the thought of the Kyoto School, the most famous Japanese philosophical movement of the twentieth century, by comparing the philosophy of its most representative members—Nishida and Nishitani—with some better known thinkers in the West: Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Paul Ricœur, and Michel Henry. Bernard Stevens highlights the proximity of this movement of thought to the European phenomenological current that influenced it. However, the book also addresses an eminently problematic reality: the affiliation of some of its members with the militarism of the 1930s and 1940s. The political philosophers Arendt and Maruyama provide useful guidance here, in clarifying one of the central issues of this episode: the ideology of'overcoming modernity', supported by some of the younger disciples of Nishida. This book proposes intellectual conditions for both critical and appreciative receptions of one of the most fascinating philosophical adventures of the twentieth century.

John Dewey's sojourn to China created a historical moment between the United States and China. Therefore, some of the recent scholarship on the topic aims to uncover the social and historical implications behind Dewey's Chinese trip, centering on how intercultural conversations occurred between “Confucius” and “John Dewey” during the period of May Fourth/New Culture Movement. Much research also reflects an attempt to synthesize and unify Western and Eastern education. This book spotlights a cross-cultural “encounter” between Confucius and John Dewey by studying the four well-known Chinese scholars Hu Shih, Liang Shuming, Tao Xingzhi, and Jiang Menglin, who exerted a profound impact on many aspects of Chinese society during the May Fourth/New Culture Movement period. The study explores answers to a crucial question: What motivated Dewey's Chinese disciples to forge a synthesis of Confucian traditions and Deweyan ideas to purse of the goals of Chinese educational and cultural reformation? Simultaneously, based on an in-depth historical, philosophical, and cultural analysis of Dewey's visit to China, this study aims to disclose how our education has evolved in the context of cultural pluralism The book seeks to contribute provocative ideas to today's educators: any school of thought can renew and update itself if it maintains an open dialogue with a different civilization. Dynamic and transparent intercultural communication enables us to develop a sense of understanding and respect for cultural diversity, all of which are of great benefit to the construction of a stable and healthy international order.

Leading international scholars present analysis and case studies from different cultural settings, East and West, exploring aesthetic interest and experience in our daily lives at home, in workplaces, using everyday things, in our built and natural environments, and in our relationships and communities. A wide range of views and examples of everyday aesthetics are presented from western philosophical paradigms, from Confucian and Daoist aesthetics, and from the Japanese tradition. All indicate universal features of human aesthetic lives together with their cultural variations. Comparative Everyday Aesthetics is a significant contribution to a key trend in international aesthetics for thinking beyond narrow art-centered conceptions of the aesthetic. It generates global discussions about good, aesthetic, everyday living in all its various aspects. It also promotes aesthetic education for personal, social, and environmental development and presents opportunities for global collaborative projects in philosophical aesthetics.

The Non-Hierarchical Way from Yijing to Jeongyeok: A New Paradigm for East Meeting West examines the paradoxical structure of Yijing known as the Book of Changes—a structure that promotes in a non-hierarchical way the harmony and transformation of opposites. Because the non-hierarchical model is not limited to the East Asian tradition, it is considered in relation to ideas developed in the West, including Carl Jung's archetypal psychology, Georg Cantor's Diagonal Theorem, Rene Girard's mimetic desire, and Alfred North Whitehead's process thought. By critically reviewing the numerical and symbolic structures of Yijing, Young Woon Ko introduces Kim Ilbu's Jeongyeok (the Book of Right Changes) and demonstrates that it intensifies the correlation between opposites to overcome any hierarchical system implied by the Yijing. Both the Yijing and the Jeongyeok are useful textual sources for kindling a discussion about the Divine, which is conceived in Eastern and Western philosophical theological traditions quite differently. While the nontheistic aspects of the Ultimate feature prominently in Yijing, Jeongyeok extends them to a theistic issue by introducing the notion of Sangjae, the Supreme Lord, which can lead to a fruitful dialogue for understanding the dipolar characteristics of the divine reality—personal and impersonal. Ko considers their contrast, which has divided Eastern and Western religious belief systems, to be transformational and open to a wider perspective of the divine conception in the process of change.

This book collects and studies the colourful sports and history of countries along the historical Silk Road from Chang'an to Athens, including a wide range of sports ranging from polo and chess to archery and lion dance. It will examine, research and analyse a large number of sports cultural relics and documentary materials unearthed by archaeology in recent years, and comprehensively collects and classifies these sports materials which belong to different countries along the Silk Road. In doing so, it aims to promote the sports forms of these countries and set the context of sports development, so as to raise awareness about the exchange and dissemination of sports culture between ancient China and Western countries.

This book examines the relationship between cultural difference and practical knowledge and its implications for the study of humanities and the social sciences.It sketches a meta-theory of Western thought to grasp the conceptual distortions that result when a normatively structured theoretical way of understanding the world seeks to displace practical forms of understanding. The book draws on both Western thinkers such as Nietzsche, Marx, Wittgenstein and Foucault and Indian thinkers such as Gandhi, Tagore and Balagangadhara to formulate a practical epistemology that delimits theoretical knowledge by regenerating experiential knowledge that was the hallmark of Indian intellectual traditions and provides the intellectual resources for rejecting normativity. By thus preparing the ground for a radical reconceptualization of the human sciences it seeks to overcome the loss of concepts and the violence generated by the grafting of ill–understood and experience-occluding normative conceptual structures on the fabric of practical life. Finally, the author offers an alternative conceptualization of Indian sociality through the idea of a practitional matrix, which explains both why the West necessarily misunderstood or misdescribed India and how that misdescription enables us to theorize the West. Part of Critical Humanities across Cultures series, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, post-colonial studies, cultural studies, Indian studies and literature.

Upturning the typical view of Turkey's democratic trajectory as a product of authoritarian assault or unfortunate circumstances, this book argues that the AKP, first elected in 2002, has consistently advanced a narrative of democracy as the work of an elite working for the'National Will'. Beginning with an analysis of the historical processes that led to the AKP's rise at the beginning of the 21st century, the book then focuses on the AKP since 2002. Though Turkey's democratic transition was originally characterised by Western co-operation, the author outlines the gradual deterioration of these relations since the 2010s, as well as the decline of political rights, freedom of expression and the rule of law. However, bringing in theoretical perspectives of democracy, it is argued that the AKP has adopted an alternative definition based on the'National Will'throughout its rule, resistant to the Western essentialist view. As such, the AKP's story highlights that the root of this crisis lies within democracy itself.The book will appeal to historians and analysts of Turkish politics, as well as to political scientists interested in theories of democracy. Moreover, for those interested in the global contemporary crisis of democracy, the book provides an important case-study.

El presente libro científico y cognitivo ofrece una oportunidad para reflexionar sobre las diversas cuestiones y temas que interesan a investigadores y académicos que están involucrados en el estudio de la relación entre Oriente y Occidente, así como en la interacción entre Occidente y el mundo árabe e islámico. Esta obra permite a los lectores la provechosa oportunidad de identificar y explorar los diversos enfoques que permiten contemplar las diferentes regiones del mundo, tanto en el ámbito del este como en el del oeste.Con la aportación de investigadores académicos de universidades vinculadas a los cinco continentes, el libro ofrece una perspectiva amplia y diversa, enriqueciendo aún más la comprensión de estos temas. Además, es capaz de dar una visión precisa de cómo se concibe al otro'y las epistemologías que se utilizan para entenderlo. Al establecer su interpretación, el libro nos invita a plantear cuestiones fundamentales sobre la capacidad de estas epistemologías y enfoques para fomentar un conocimiento cercano y equitativo del otro.'

Providing the first in-depth examination of Pope Pius II's development of the concept of Europe and what it meant to be ‘European', From Christians to Europeans charts his life and work from his early years as a secretary in Northern Europe to his papacy. This volume introduces students and scholars to the concept of Europe by an important and influential early thinker. It also provides Renaissance specialists who already know him with the fullest consideration to date of how and why Pius (1405–1464) constructed the idea of a unified European culture, society, and identity. Author Nancy Bisaha shows how Pius's years of travel, his emotional response to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the impact of classical ethnography and other works shaped this compelling vision—with close readings of his letters, orations, histories, autobiography, and other works. Europeans, as Pius boldly defined them, shared a distinct character that made them superior to the inhabitants of other continents. The reverberations of his views can still be felt today in debates about identity, ethnicity, race, and belonging in Europe and more generally. This study explores the formation of this problematic notion of privilege and separation—centuries before the modern era, where most scholars have erroneously placed its origins. From Christians to Europeans adds substantially to our understanding of the Renaissance as a critical time of European self-fashioning and the creation of a modern'Western'identity.This book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in the formation of modern Europe, intellectual history, cultural studies, and the history of Renaissance Europe, late medieval Italy, and the Ottoman Empire.

Geopolitical upheaval has gripped the world since collapse of the Soviet Union. During the 1990s the West focused on eliminating the resurgence of Russia as a great power. This led to the assimilation of Warsaw Pact countries into NATO, two Chechen wars, and political systems in the Central Asian republics aligned with the West. Russia's economic destruction was managed by the Harvard boys‘ shock therapy, which left Russian resources in the control of a few oligarchs aligned with the West. By the end of the 1990s Russia was a weak, bankrupt country of marginalized influence in the world. Then the West's focus turned to China as a potential challenger to western global hegemony. It was thought to suffice to control global energy resources and sea-lanes to China to prevent China from challenging western global hegemony. Hence the first two decades of the millennium were focused on controlling West Asia and North Africa‘s energy resources. For most, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 signaled the victory of the self-denominated Free World. Why the West Can't Win, however, addresses how events in the three following decades signal the end of a millennium of West European expansionism, a plundering and oppression initially labeled Crusades when the popes embodied political power, morphing into colonialism, then to the Free World when colonialism went out of fashion post-World War II, and at last to the “International Community” after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This book's geopolitical analysis includes a historical overview, an understanding of the financial systems established at the Bretton Woods conference that continue dominating the global economy, how they are used as a powerful geopolitical instrument, an economic analysis based on real goods production, global energy dynamics, alliances and strategies of key global players. It addresses the emerging division of the world into two geopolitical groups: Western Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Africa, Asia and Latin America. The current global geopolitical clash is in essence a struggle between the colonial powers wishing to preserve the Bretton Woods system that allows siphoning wealth of nations, and sovereign nations striving for independence and an end to a millennium of oppression. This work compares the geopolitical forces since the turn of the millennium with a view to providing insight into their relative strengths and the likely outcome of this strugg

Focusing on Rumi, the best-selling Persian mystical poet of the 13th century, this book investigates the reception of his work and thought in North America and Europe – and the phenomenon of ‘Rumimania'– to elucidate the complexities of intercultural communication between the West and the Iranian and Islamic worlds.Presenting tens of examples from the original and translated texts, the book is a critical analysis of various dimensions of this reception, outlining the difficulties of translating the text but also exploring how translators of various times and languages have performed, and explaining why the quality of reception varies. Topics analysed include the linguistic and pragmatic issues of translation, comparative stylistics and poetics, and non-textual factors like the translator's beliefs and the political and ideological aspects of translation. Using a broad theoretical framework, the author highlights the difficulties of intercultural communication from linguistic, semiotic, stylistic, poetic, ethical, and sociocultural perspectives. Ultimately, the author shares his reflections on the semiotic specificities of Rumi's mystical discourse and the ethics of translation generally.The book will be valuable to scholars and students of Islamic philosophy, Iranian studies, and translation studies, but will appeal to anyone interested in the cultural dichotomies of the West and Islam.

This book was compiled, at the request of the CITIC Press, by Liang Peikuan 梁培宽 (1925–2021), the son of Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 (1893–1988). Liang Shuming was known as the'Last Confucian,'the'Last Buddhist,'the'Hidden Buddhist,'a'lifelong activist,'a'unifier of thought and action,'and so on. Part I'The Spirit of the Chinese Culture'is a collection of excerpts from Liang Shuming's previous publications, including his most famous Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies (1922). Part II'China and the West: Two Different Paths of Social Evolution'and Part III'The Need to Bring into Union China's Strengths and Foreign Strengths'are the first reprints of what Liang Shuming wrote more than seventy years ago, between 1942 and 1949, too late to be included in the Complete Works of Liang Shuming (1989–1993). The book looks at the cultural destiny of China, as Liang perceived it, of course.

Bringing together eminent International Relations (IR) scholars from China and the West, this book examines moral realism from a range of different perspectives. Through its analyses, it verifies the robustness of moral realism in IR theory. The first section of the book is written by Chinese scholars and dedicated to debates about how moral realism relates to traditional schools of IR theory. The latter portion, provided by Western contributors, critically investigates both the universal and practical values of moral realism. Finally, Yan Xuetong concludes by responding constructively to all criticisms and further exploring the nature and characteristics of interstate leadership in moral realism.

Di che cosa parliamo quando parliamo di Occidente? Oggi, con la guerra in Ucraina, sembra ritornare in auge un concetto di Occidente tutto geopolitico, dove Europa occidentale e Stati Uniti, difensori di democrazia e libertà, si contrappongono alla'barbarie'orientale, russa e cinese. Ma non è sempre stato così, anzi, e siamo sicuri che questa idea di Occidente, questa alleanza fatta di valori, di economia e di tecnologia militare, duri per sempre? Dai tempi delle guerre persiane, Oriente e Occidente sono fratelli coltelli, amici e nemici, sogno e incubo. «L'Oriente è l'Oriente, l'Occidente è l'Occidente: e nessuno potrà mai accordarli», dichiara Rudyard Kipling al tempo della fondazione dell'impero britannico d'India. Sulla base dei troppi malintesi generati dal loro confronto sono emersi anche'ismi'ideologici, tanto accaniti tra loro quanto ambigui: orientalismo e occidentalismo, avvolti nel dilatare delle loro contraddizioni. Già Oswald Spengler aveva decretato il'tramonto dell'Occidente'; ma immediatamente, dietro l'Occidente-Europa spengleriano, se n'era andato profilando un altro, quello americano, che dopo aver soggiogato il Pacifico si apprestava a trangugiare anche l'Atlantico: Leviathan di terra e di mare secondo Carl Schmitt, contrapposto a Behemoth, compatto Oriente tutto terragno. Ma intanto però, altrove, dal Giappone alla Cina e all'India si andavano proponendo altri Occidenti, fondati su presupposti differenti da quello euroamericano e portatori di altre'modernità'. Con la guerra in Ucraina, la Russia viene definitivamente spostata verso l'Asia ed esclusa dalla sua dimensione cristiana ed europea. Ma questa definizione di Occidente ha senso o è soltanto utile oggi per ragioni strumentali?

Western thinking has long been dominated by essence, by a preoccupation with that which dwells in itself and delimits itself from the other. By contrast, Far Eastern thought is centred not on essence but on absence. The fundamental topos of Far Eastern thinking is not being but ‘the way'(dao), which lacks the solidity and fixedness of essence. The difference between essence and absence is the difference between being and path, between dwelling and wandering. ‘A Zen monk should be without fixed abode, like the clouds, and without fixed support, like water', said the Japanese Zen master Dōgen. Drawing on this fundamental distinction between essence and absence, Byung-Chul Han explores the differences between Western and Far Eastern philosophy, aesthetics, architecture and art, shedding fresh light on a culture of absence that may at first sight appear strange and unfamiliar to those in the West whose ways of thinking have been shaped for centuries by the preoccupation with essence.

A revisionist history of the idea of progress reveals an unknown story about European engagement with Chinese science. The Enlightenment gave rise not only to new ideas of progress but consequential debates about them. Did distant times and places have anything to teach the here and now? Voltaire could believe that they did; Hegel was convinced that they did not. Early philosophes praised Chinese philosophy as an enduring model of reason. Later philosophes rejected it as stuck in the past. Seeking to vindicate ancient knowledge, a group of French statesmen and savants began a conversation with the last great scholar of the Jesuit mission to China. Together, they drew from Chinese learning to challenge the emerging concept of Western advancement. A Global Enlightenment traces this overlooked exchange between China and the West to make compelling claims about the history of progress, notions of European exceptionalism, and European engagement with Chinese science. To tell this story, Alexander Statman focuses on a group of thinkers he terms “orphans of the Enlightenment,” intellectuals who embraced many of their contemporaries'ideals but valued ancient wisdom. They studied astronomical records, gas balloons, electrical machines, yin-yang cosmology, animal magnetism, and Daoist medicine. And their inquiries helped establish a new approach to the global history of science. Rich with new archival research and fascinating anecdotes, A Global Enlightenment deconstructs two common assumptions about the early to late modern period. Though historians have held that the idea of a mysterious and inscrutable East was inherent in Enlightenment progress theory, Statman argues that it was the orphans of the Enlightenment who put it there: by identifying China as a source of ancient wisdom, they turned it into a foil for scientific development. But while historical consensus supposes that non-Western ideas were banished from European thought over the course of the Enlightenment, Statman finds that Europeans became more interested in Chinese science—as a precursor, then as an antithesis, and finally as an alternative to modernity.

This book presents an essential contribution to approaches in the studies of film, literature, performance, translation, and other art forms within the Chinese cultural tradition, examining East-West cultural exchange and providing related intertextual dialogue. The assessment of cultural exchange in the East-West context involves the original source, the adapted text, and other enigmatic extras incurred during the process. It aims to evaluate the linkage among, but not limited to, literature, film, music, art, and performance. The sections unpack how canonical texts can be read anew in modern society; how ideas can be circulated around the world based on translation, adaptation, and reinvention; and how the global networks of circulation can facilitate cultural interaction and intervention. The authors engage discussions on longstanding debates and controversies relating to Chinese literature as world literature; reconciliations of cultural identity under the contemporary waves ofglobalization and glocalization; Chinese-Western film adaptations and their impact upon cinematic experiences; an understanding of gendered roles and voices under the social gaze; and the translation of texts from intertextual angles. An enriching intellectual, intertextual resource for researchers and students enthusiastic about the adaptation and transformation process of different genres, this book is a must-have for Sinophiles. It will appeal to world historians interested in the global networks of connectivity, scholars researching cultural life in East Asia, and China specialists interested in cultural studies, translation, and film, media and literary studies.

This book compares the ways in which new powers arose in the shadows of the Roman Empire and its Byzantine and Carolingian successors, of Iran, the Caliphate and China in the first millennium CE. These new powers were often established by external military elites who had served the empire. They remained in an uneasy balance with the remaining empire, could eventually replace it, or be drawn into the imperial sphere again. Some relied on dynastic legitimacy, others on ethnic identification, while most of them sought imperial legitimation. Across Eurasia, their dynamic was similar in many respects; why were the outcomes so different? Contributors are Alexander Beihammer, Maaike van Berkel, Francesco Borri, Andrew Chittick, Michael R. Drompp, Stefan Esders, Ildar Garipzanov, Jürgen Paul, Walter Pohl, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Helmut Reimitz, Jonathan Shepard, Q. Edward Wang, Veronika Wieser, and Ian N. Wood.

This first and only English translation of Rong Xinjiang's The Silk Road and Cultural Exchanges Between East and West is a collection of 28 papers on the history of the Silk Road and the interactions among the peoples and cultures of East and Central Asia, including the so-called Western Regions in modern-day Xinjiang. Each paper is a masterly study that combines information obtained from historical records with excavated materials, such as manuscripts, inscriptions and artefacts. The new materials primarily come from north-western China, including sites in the regions of Dunhuang, Turfan, Kucha, and Khotan. The book contains a wealth of original insights into nearly every aspect of the complex history of this region.

In this important and hugely ambitious book, one of the world's leading political scientists working on China demonstrates how Western views of China are flawed because the long tradition of Western scholarship studying China views China from the Western philosophical and intellectual perspective rather than viewing China on its own terms through the lens of China's own long-established and reputable philosophical and intellectual tradition. Providing a deep analysis of Western scholarship on China, including work from Leibniz to Marx to Weber and then to Wittfogel, and a thorough account of the evolution of China's own thinking about governance as expressed in the practices of successive Chinese dynasties, the book goes on to examine how the current Chinese body politic fits with and is the natural outcome of China's own long, well-thought-through and well-practiced intellectual consideration of what the nature of civilized governance should be. By focusing on philosophical and intellectual approaches rather than on theoretical or methodological ones, the book shows how the huge and increasing disconnect between non-Chinese views of China and Chinese ones has come about.

Russia in World History uses a comparative framework to understand Russian history in a global context. The book challenges the idea of Russia as an outlier of European civilization by examining select themes in modern Russian history alongside cases drawn from the British Empire.Choi Chatterjee analyzes the concepts of nation and empire, selfhood and subjectivity, socialism and capitalism, and revolution and the world order in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. In doing so she rethinks many historical narratives that bluntly posit a liberal West against a repressive, authoritarian Russia. Instead Chatterjee argues for a wider perspective which reveals that imperial practices relating to the appropriation of human and natural resources were shared across European empires, both East and West.Incorporating the stories of famous thinkers, such as Leo Tolstoy, Emma Goldman, Wangari Maathai, Arundhati Roy, among others. This unique interpretation of modern Russia is knitted together from the varied lives and experiences of those individuals who challenged the status quo and promoted a different way of thinking. This is a ground-breaking book with big and provocative ideas about the history of the modern world, and will be vital reading for students of both modern Russian and world history.

This book urges readers to develop a radical capacity to unthink and rethink interculturality, through multiple, pluri-perspectival and honest dialogues between the authors, and their students. This book does not give interculturality a normative scaffolding but envisages it differently by identifying some of its polyphonic textures. China's rich engagement with interculturality serves to support the importance of being curious about other ways of thinking about the notion beyond the ‘West'only. As such, the issues of culture, identity, language, translation, intercultural competence and silent transformations (amongst others) are re-evaluated in a different light. This is a highly informative and carefully presented book, providing scientific insights for readers with an interest in interculturality.

South Korean historian Jie-Hyun Lim, raised under an anticommunist dictatorship, turned to Marxian thought to explain his country's development, even as he came to struggle with its Eurocentrism. As a transnational scholar working in postcommunist Poland, Lim recognized striking similarities between Korean and Polish history and politics. One realization stood out: Both Korea and Poland—at once the “West” for Asia yet “Eastern” Europe—had been assigned the role of “East.”This book explores entangled Easts to reconsider global history from the margins. Examining the politics of history and memory, Lim reveals the affinities linking Eastern Europe and East Asia. He draws out commonalities in their experiences of modernity, in their transitions from dictatorship to democracy, and in the shaping of collective memory. Ranging across Poland, Germany, Israel, Japan, and Korea, Lim traces the global history of how notions of victimhood have become central to nationalism. He criticizes mass dictatorships of right and left in the Global Easts, considering Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt's notion of sovereign dictatorship and the concept of decisionist democracy. Lim argues that nationalism is inherently transnational, critiquing how the nationalist imagination of the Global East has influenced countries across borders. Theoretically sophisticated and conceptually innovative, this book sheds new light on the transnational complexity of historical memory and imagination, the boundaries between democracy and mass dictatorship, and the fluidity of East and West.

Considering the important impact of Asian cultures on international relations, we conducted a multifaceted analysis and authentic summary of the Asian experiences and patterns of dealing with foreign relations from an Asian insider's perspective, aiming to find out where the diverging or converging diplomatic ways of the West and the East came from and what the positive diplomatic values and practices originated from Asian traditions are. Focusing on China, volume one thoroughly analyses the nature, political culture and mechanism of the tribute system from ancient time to the modern era within and beyond China. Volume two studies the culture and diplomacy of various individual Asian nations except for China, both in general and in particular cases, with an interdisciplinary approach. 考慮到亞洲文化對國際關係之影響的特殊重要性, 我們從一個亞洲局内人的角度, 對亞洲處理對外關係的經歷和模式進行了多方面的分析和真實可信的總結, 以發現在哪裏東西方的外交方式出現了分歧或聚合, 以及什麽是源於亞洲傳統的具有積極意義之外交價值觀. 卷一集中于中國, 徹底分析了朝貢體系的本質, 政治文化及其從古至近代以及在中國境外的延申和演變. 卷二以跨學科的方式, 探討了除中國以外亞洲各國不同的文化和外交, 既有綜合分析, 也有個案研究.

This book tells the story of how the'servile arts'turned into the'mechanical arts,'which in turn developed into a kind of philosophical apparatus that made modern science possible. Why did the scientific revolution take place in the West and not in China or the Islamic world? How did humanity's progress in science and technology, which had been moving along at a relatively steady pace for tens of thousands of years, end up taking such an unprecedented leap? Subjecting the history of thought and technology to a novel interpretation based on the relationship between theory and practice, Ahmet Selami Çalışkan argues that the industrial revolution and modern science—and the scientific revolution that preceded both—did not alone suffice to sort out the philosophical problems of their day or to produce the institutions of the modern age. Both required a new sort of human: Homo economicus faber. Tracing the historical emergence of this figure and its persistence in our own age, this book offers an innovative and holistic assessment of the economic, cultural and political effects of centuries of interaction between East and West and their repercussions in our world today.