Modernity and National Identity in the United States and East Asia

Contents

Download PDF (175.5 KB)
pp. vi-

List of Illustrations

Download PDF (342.2 KB)
pp. viii-

Preface and Acknowledgments

Download PDF (193.9 KB)
pp. x-xii

The scope of this book arises from an inability to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. I thought I had left behind my undergraduate degree in East Asian Languages and Civilizations when, after a hiatus of many years, I entered the Ph.D. program at The Ohio State University intending to focus on U.S. foreign relations. Not satisfied with a conventional diplomatic study and method, I found myself drawn to the cultural approach and intrigued by the idea of using my hardearned language skills for a multiarchival, multilanguage study..

Introduction

Download PDF (1.4 MB)
pp. 1-19

The U.S. minister to Peking could not conceal his exasperation. Charles Denby reported his opinion of Chinese diplomacy in December 1894 in terms that he knew were too strong for public disclosure: “I beg to say here confidentially and not for publication that the ignorance and helplessness of these people pass all comprehension...

Part I: Ideas and the Making of Identity

Download PDF (190.3 KB)
pp. 20-82

1: Civilization and National Identity

Download PDF (542.5 KB)
pp. 21-43

Theodore Roosevelt in 1899 exhorted his countrymen to pursue the “strenuous life.” “We cannot, if we would, play the part of China,” he urged. The United States must prepare itself “if she is to do her duty among the nations of the earth—if she is not to stand merely as the China of the western hemisphere...

2: Modernity and Empire

Download PDF (1.5 MB)
pp. 44-82

Intellectual ferment in the 1890s had a profound impact on national identity in the United States, China, and Japan. Rapid social and economic changes caused Americans to wonder where their country was going and what the future of the nation would be in the new century and prompted a number of writers to offer competing visions of modernity and America’s destiny...

Part II: Women and Constructions of Modernity

Download PDF (190.2 KB)
pp. 83-136

3: Beneficent Imperialists

Download PDF (527.1 KB)
pp. 83-103

In the summer of 1895, American missionary Hattie Yates Cady wrote her sister: Oh, by the way just let me tell you a compliment (?) I received the other evening. . . . Miss Annber tells me that [the Chinese women] all admired me so much, said I wore Chinese clothes just like a Chinese woman, did not act awkward in them and walked exactly like a Chinese woman (How is that for my small feet?)...

4: Chinese Modernity and the “New Woman”

Download PDF (20.0 MB)
pp. 104-136

The first issue of the Chinese women’s magazine Zhongguo xinnüjie zazhi (New World of Chinese Women) carried a story titled “On Women’s Equal Rights” that declared, “Women’s rights are most advanced in America and least advanced in China.” In the next issue the article “American Women’s Rights” picked up the theme, acknowledging, “I don’t know when we will be able to measure up...

Part III: Modernity and Identity in the Global Arena

Download PDF (359.8 KB)
pp. 137-183

5: Nationalism and Internationalism

Download PDF (3.7 MB)
pp. 137-167

The year 1912 was a watershed, a year of endings and beginnings. On the first day of that year, the Chinese Republic was proclaimed, marking the end of an empire and centuries of dynastic rule. The new nation was called into being in the midst of political chaos and intellectual ferment, with the structure and identity of the republic as yet undecided...

6: Power and National Identity in Wartime

Download PDF (482.6 KB)
pp. 168-183

At the outbreak of war in 1914, Liang Qichao urged that China take the opportunity to reform its society and join the world. Similarly, Japanese statesman Inoue Kaoru hailed the war as “divine aid” for Japan’s future. Most Americans, by contrast, wanted to have nothing to do with the European war. Few thought of it as having direct relevance to the balance of power in Asia, and when Japan moved quickly to occupy the former German territory of Shandong...

Conclusion

Download PDF (382.0 KB)
pp. 185-189

The Paris Peace Conference left many issues unresolved. The powers made one more effort to establish an international order for Asia at the 1922 Washington Conference, but by this time the domestic and international situations of the United States, China, and Japan had changed. Americans were in a comparatively isolationist mood...

Notes

Download PDF (714.4 KB)
pp. 191-228

Bibliography

Download PDF (801.9 KB)
pp. 229-251

Index

Download PDF (10.8 MB)
pp. 253-260