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This book of interviews with Professor Wang Gungwu, published to felicitate him on his 80th birthday in 2010, seeks to convey to a general audience something of the life, times and thoughts of a leading historian, Southeast Asianist, Sinologist and public intellectual. The interviews flesh out Professor Wangs views on being Chinese in Malaya; his experience of living and working in Malaysia, Singapore and Australia; the Vietnam War; Hong Kong and its return to China; the rise of China; Taiwans, Japans and Indias place in the emerging scheme of things; and on the United States in an age of terrorism and war. The book includes an interview with his wife, Mrs Margaret Wang, on their life together for half a century. Two interviews by scholars on Professor Wangs work are also included, as are his curriculum vitae and a select bibliography of his works. What comes across in this book is how Professor Wang was buffeted by feral times and hostile worlds but responded to them as a left-liberal humanist who refused to cut ideological corners. This book records his response to tumultuous times on hindsight, but with a keen sense of having lived through the times of which he speaks.
This book focuses on Wang Gungwu as an educator and scholar, through the use of essays written about Wang, a biographical sketch of his public and private life, and a list of over 50 books written by Wang as well as those written in honor of him.
Wang Gungwu is one of Asia’s most important public intellectuals. He is best-known for his explorations of Chinese history in the long view, and for his writings on the Chinese diaspora. With Home is Not Here, the historian of grand themes turns to a single life history: his own. In this volume, Wang talks about his multicultural upbringing and life under British rule. He was born in Surabaya, Java, but his parents’ orientation was always to China. Wang grew up in the plural, multi-ethnic town of Ipoh, Malaya (now Malaysia). He learned English in colonial schools and was taught the Confucian classics at home. After the end of WWII and Japanese occupation, he left for the National Central University in Nanjing to study alongside some of the finest of his generation of Chinese undergraduates. The victory of Mao Zedong’s Communist Party interrupted his education, and he ends this volume with his return to Malaya. Wise and moving, this is a fascinating reflection on family, identity, and belonging, and on the ability of the individual to find a place amid the historical currents that have shaped Asia and the world.
Wang Gungwu is one of the most influential historians of his generation. Initially renowned for his pioneering work on the structure of power in early imperial China, he is more widely known for expanding the horizons of Chinese history to include the histories of the Chinese and their descendents outside China. It is probably no coincidence, Philip Kuhn observes, that the most comprehensive historian of the Overseas Chinese is the historian most firmly grounded in the history of China itself. This book is a celebration of the life, work, and impact of Professor Wang Gungwu over the past four decades. It commemorates his contribution to the study of Chinese history and the abiding influence ...
For the past century, all kinds of Chinese people seemed to have tried to be ?modern?. At the same time, the standards of modernity have been set elsewhere and they seem always to be higher than what has been achieved. That makes most Chinese work harder, but some may well wonder if standards rise so that China will always get a poor report card at the end of each year.The ongoing drama of Chinese people seeking to be modern has been enacted in different parts of the world. There are interesting differences among these Chinese, depending on where they have been living. The general trend, however, is unmistakable. The striving for betterment is supported by a strong capacity to adapt and change, and this is reflected in the way the Chinese seize new opportunities when they occur. The essays here describe some of these efforts both inside and outside China, and form a small mosaic of Chinese practising the art of modernising.
Despite Beijing’s repeated assurance that China’s rise will be "peaceful", the United States, Japan and the European Union as well as many of China's Asian neighbours feel uneasy about the rise of China. Although China’s rise could be seen as inevitable, it remains uncertain as to how a politically and economically powerful China will behave, and how it will conduct its relations with the outside world. One major problem with understanding China’s international relations is that western concepts of international relations only partially explain China’s approach. China’s own flourishing, indigeneous community of international relations scholars have borrowed many concepts from the...
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Will the rise of China change the international system built by the industrial and constitutional democracies of the West of the past centuries? Should China be content with the maintenance of that system: one of competing nationstates of absolute sovereignty and relative power? Does the Confucian past contain a moral vision that may connect with universal human values of the modern world? And will the rising China become an engine for a renewed Chinese civilization that contributes to the equity in the international system? Pondering these fundamental questions, historian Prof. Wang Gungwu probes into the Chinese perception of its place in world history, and traces the unique features that propel China onto its modern global transformation. He depicts the travails of renewal that China has to face and betters our understanding of China's position in today's interconnected world. This collection of Prof. Wang Gungwu's thoughts is a mustread for us to contemplate China's root and routes along its modernization trajectory.
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This book explores China's place in the new international order, from both the international perspective, and from the perspective within China. It discusses how far the new international order, as viewed by the United States and with the United States seeing itself as the single dominant power, applies to China.