{"product_id":"china-imagined-from-european-fantasy-to-spectacular-power","title":"China Imagined","description":"How did China become China? And where is it leading us? We talk as if it had always existed: eternal China with its 5,000 years of uninterrupted history. But the name 'China' was first used by sixteenth-century Europeans, and its Chinese equivalent, Zhongguo, only gained currency in the mid-1800s. \n\nChina Imagined is a thoughtful exploration of the idea of China, from the naming and mapping of its territory and peoples to the creation and rise of the modern nation-state. China's early history describes a multilingual space, ruled by a homogeneous elite with its own minority culture--a far cry from Maoism's national mass culture, or Xi Jinping's state-controlled digital society today. \n\nGregory Lee traces this complex, diverse entity's evolution since the Opium Wars into a China made in 'our' image. Today, it is a great power integral to the global system, whether it comes to climate change, security or inequality. Given this rapid convergence with the West, Xi's China holds up a mirror to our own nations. Trump's America, Putin's Russia and post- Brexit Europe all betray echoes of the 'Chinese Dream'. If China is a product of Westernisation, is it now the West's turn to become China? ","brand":"C Hurst \u0026 Co Publishers Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":32118423126099,"sku":"9781787380165","price":25.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781787380165.jpg?v=1778616930","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/china-imagined-from-european-fantasy-to-spectacular-power","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}