Recent Studies of Modern Chinese History

1996 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans van de Ven
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
Western Scholarship

Some time ago the Commonwealth and Overseas History Society of Cambridge University asked me to provide an overview of recent scholarship on modern Chinese history. What follows is a written version of this ‘public service’ lecture aimed at non-specialist historians. It discusses Western scholarship on China from the eighteenth until the twentieth century.

Consumption and Nationalism: China

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Gerth
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
General Population ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
Department Stores ◽  
Economic Nationalism ◽  
National Brands ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
The Creation

In China, the politicization of consumption at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century became a key way in which intellectuals and politicians defined, and the general population experienced, nationalism. In China and worldwide, consumption has served as a battleground in the creation of the modern nation. This article traces the changing manifestations of these historical connections between consumption and nationalism across modern Chinese history up to the present, focusing on the most conspicuous form of economic nationalism in the twentieth century, boycotts, as well as a newer form, brand nationalism. A more subtle mode of linking consumerism to nationalism in the early twentieth century was an interlocking set of nationalistic commodity spectacles that included modern imaged-based advertising, museums, department stores, and exhibitions, all of which articulated and propagated this link through a nationalistic visuality. China also showed an obsession with creating national brands, a consequence of which is the increasing standardization of brands across the nation, a foundational element of a national consciousness through consumerism.

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