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Author Zarrow, Peter Gue, author

Title Abolishing boundaries : global utopias in the formation of modern Chinese political thought, 1880-1940 / Peter Zarrow
Published Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021]

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Description 1 online resource
Series SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture
Contents Ways to conceptualize utopianism : an introduction -- Cosmopolitanism and equality : Kang Youwei -- Aesthetics and transcendence : Cai Yuanpei -- Democracy and the community : Chen Duxiu -- Experimentalism, process, and progress : Hu Shi
Summary "Offers new perspectives on modern Chinese political thought"-- Provided by publisher
Offers new perspectives on modern Chinese political thought. Focusing on four key Chinese intellectuals of the first half of the twentieth century, Abolishing Boundaries offers new perspectives on modern Chinese political thought. These four intellectuals--Kang Youwei, Cai Yuanpei, Chen Duxiu, and Hu Shi--were deeply familiar with the Confucian and Buddhist classical texts, while also interested in the West's utopian literature of the late nineteenth century as well as Kant and the neo-Kantians, Marxists, and John Dewey and new liberalism, respectively. Although none of these four intellectuals can simply be labeled utopian thinkers, this book highlights how their thinking was intertwined with utopian ideals to produce theories of secular transcendence, liberalism, and communism, and how, in explicit and implicit ways, their ideas required some utopian impulse in order to escape the boundaries they identified as imprisoning the Chinese people and all humanity. To abolish these boundaries was to imagine alternatives to the unbearable present. This was not a matter of armchair philosophizing but of thinking through new ways to commit to action. These men did not hold a totalistic picture of some perfect society, but in distinctly different ways they all displayed a utopian impulse that fueled radical visions of change. Their work reveals much about the underlying forces shaping modern thought in China--and the world. Reacting to China's problems, they sought a better future for all humanity. Peter Zarrow is Professor of History at the University of Connecticut. His previous books include Educating China: Knowledge, Society, and Textbooks in a Modernizing World, 1902-1937 and After Empire: The Conceptual Transformation of the Chinese State, 1885-1924. -- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed
Subject Kang, Youwei, 1858-1927.
Cai, Yuanpei, 1868-1940.
Chen, Duxiu, 1879-1942.
Hu, Shi, 1891-1962.
Cai, Yuanpei, 1868-1940
Chen, Duxiu, 1879-1942
Hu, Shi, 1891-1962
Kang, Youwei, 1858-1927
Political science -- China -- Philosophy -- History -- 19th century
Political science -- China -- Philosophy -- History -- 20th century
Utopias -- Philosophy
Political science -- Philosophy
Utopias -- Philosophy
China
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2020039950
ISBN 1438482841
9781438482842