Introduction to Modern Chinese Culture

Author: Gong Shuduo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-07-01
Features: This book is a research project funded by the Doctoral Program Foundation of the State Education Commission under the "Seventh Five-Year Plan." The original topic was titled "Modern Chinese Cultural History (1840-1919)." Considering that systematic historical writing is not yet fully mature and given our limited capabilities, we adopted the style of compiling thematic essays. The book is divided into fourteen chapters. The first four chapters are introductory, discussing the characteristics, development, and changes of modern Chinese culture, the debates between Chinese and Western cultures, as well as the "Western Learning Originating from China" theory and the "Chinese Body, Western Application" argument. The following ten chapters provide detailed explanations of specific cultural fields, including social thought, Confucianism, historiography, emerging social sciences, literature and art, education, natural sciences and technology, religion, social customs, and cultural institutions and organizations. This format is perhaps best described as an "introduction." The book is suitable for researchers of cultural history and can also serve as a textbook for university and college courses on Modern Chinese Cultural History. It discusses the characteristics and development of modern Chinese culture, as well as provides detailed analyses of social thought, Confucianism, historiography, emerging social sciences, and natural sciences, among other topics.