National Polity and Local Power: The Transformation of Late Imperial China (HARVARD-YENCHING INSTITUTE MONOGRAPH SERIES)

Despite efforts to attain a more balanced approach, Western historians have largely interpreted China's modern period in terms of China's 'response to the West.' This book, by a scholar who is neither Chinese nor Western, goes far to set the balance right. Min Tu-ki, Korea's leading Sinologist, shows how China's own internal agenda has conditioned Chinese political life during the transition to modernity.