1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910815189603321

Autore

Zanasi Margherita

Titolo

Saving the nation : economic modernity in republican China / / Margherita Zanasi

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago, : University of Chicago Press, 2006

ISBN

1-282-50583-1

9786612505836

0-226-97874-5

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (333 p.)

Disciplina

330.951/04

Soggetti

China Economic conditions 1912-1949

China History Republic, 1912-1949

China Rural conditions

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-297) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- ABBREVIATIONS -- INTRODUCTION -- PART I. Envisioning Modern China -- PART II. Building the Corporativist State -- PART III. From Theory to Practice -- PART IV. Defending Which Nation? -- Conclusion -- Glossary -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Economic modernity is so closely associated with nationhood that it is impossible to imagine a modern state without an equally modern economy. Even so, most people would have difficulty defining a modern economy and its connection to nationhood. In Saving the Nation, Margherita Zanasi explores this connection by examining the first nation-building attempt in China after the fall of the empire in 1911. Challenging the assumption that nations are products of technological and socioeconomic forces, Zanasi argues that it was notions of what constituted a modern nation that led the Nationalist nation-builders to shape China's institutions and economy. In their reform effort, they confronted several questions: What characterized a modern economy? What role would a modern economy play in the overall nation-building effort? And how could China pursue economic modernization while maintaining its distinctive identity? Zanasi expertly shows how these



questions were negotiated and contested within the Nationalist Party. Silenced in the Mao years, these dilemmas are reemerging today as a new leadership once again redefines the economic foundation of the nation.