Failure, Nationalism, and Literature: The Making of Modern Chinese Identity, 1895-1937 - Hardcover

by Jing Tsu (Author)

How often do we think of cultural humiliation and failure as strengths? Against prevailing views on what it means to enjoy power as individuals, cultures, or nations, this provocative book looks at the making of cultural and national identities in modern China as building success on failure. It reveals the exercise of sovereign power where we least expect it and shows how this is crucial to our understanding of a modern world of conflict, violence, passionate suffering, and cultural difference.

Front Jacket

How often do we think of cultural humiliation and failure as strengths? Against prevailing views on what it means to enjoy power as individuals, cultures, or nations, this provocative book looks at the making of cultural and national identities in modern China as building success on failure. It reveals the exercise of sovereign power where we least expect it and shows how this is crucial to our understanding of a modern world of conflict, violence, passionate suffering, and cultural difference.

Back Jacket

Failure, Nationalism, and Literature achieves two important features of excellent scholarship--it helps makes sense of the past in new and challenging ways and in so doing provides numerous new points of departure for future scholarly work. Moreover, it stands as an excellent example of the unique contribution first-rate literary analysis can make to enhancing our understanding of the complexity of China's path through the twentieth century. This is a seriously good read.--The China Journal

Author Biography

Jing Tsu is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows.