While China Faced West

While China Faced West
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 336
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0674951379
ISBN-13 : 9780674951372
Rating : 4/5 (372 Downloads)

Book Synopsis While China Faced West by : James Claude Thomson

Download or read book While China Faced West written by James Claude Thomson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1969 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The years from 1928 to 1937 were the "Nanking decade" when the Chinese Nationalist government strove to build a new China with Western assistance. This was an interval of hope between the turbulence of the warlord-ridden twenties and the eight-year war with Japan that began in 1937. James Thomson explores the ways in which Americans, both missionaries and foundation representatives, tried to help the Chinese government and Chinese reformers undertake a transformation of rural society. His is the first in-depth study of these efforts to produce radical change and at the same time avoid the chaos and violence of revolution. Despite the conservatism of the right wing in the Kuomintang party dictatorship, this Nanking decade saw many promising beginnings. American missionaries--the largest group of Westerners in the Chinese hinterland--often took the initiative locally, and some rallied to support of China's first modern-minded government. They assisted both in rural reconstruction programs and in efforts of at ideological reform. Thomson analyzes the work of the National Christian Council in an area of Kiangsi province recently recovered from Communist rule. He also traces the deepening involvement of missionaries and the Chinese Christian Church in the "New Life Movement," sponsored by Chiang Kai-shek. Unhappily aware of the sharpening polarization of Chinese politics, these American reformers struggled in vain to steer clear of too close an identification with the ruling party. Yet they found themselves increasingly identified with the Nanking regime and their reform efforts obstructed by its disinclination or inability to revolutionize the Chinese countryside. In this way, American reformers in Nationalist China were forerunners of subsequent American attempts, under government sponsorship, to find a middle path between revolution and reaction in other situations of national upheaval. For this book, James Thomson has used hitherto unexplored archives that document the participation of American private citizens in the process of Chinese social, economic, and political change.


While China Faced West Related Books

While China Faced West
Language: en
Pages: 336
Authors: James Claude Thomson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 1969 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

GET EBOOK

The years from 1928 to 1937 were the "Nanking decade" when the Chinese Nationalist government strove to build a new China with Western assistance. This was an i
China Marches West
Language: en
Pages: 748
Authors: Peter C Perdue
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-06-30 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

GET EBOOK

From about 1600 to 1800, the Qing empire of China expanded to unprecedented size. Through astute diplomacy, economic investment, and a series of ambitious milit
When China Rules the World
Language: en
Pages: 631
Authors: Martin Jacques
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-11-12 - Publisher: Penguin

GET EBOOK

Greatly revised and expanded, with a new afterword, this update to Martin Jacques’s global bestseller is an essential guide to understanding a world increasin
While China Faced West. American Reformers in Nationalist China, 1928-1937
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: James Claude Thomson (Jr)
Categories:
Type: BOOK - Published: 1969 - Publisher:

GET EBOOK

China and Japan
Language: en
Pages: 537
Authors: Ezra F. Vogel
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-07-30 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

GET EBOOK

A Financial Times “Summer Books” Selection “Will become required reading.” —Times Literary Supplement “Elegantly written...with a confidence that co