While pre-modernity is often considered to be the 'time' of
non-European regions and modernity is seen as belonging to the
West, this book seeks to transcend the temporal bifurcation of that
world history into 'pre-modern' and 'modern', as well as question
its geographical split into two irreconcilable trajectories: the
European and the non-European. The book examines shared experiences
of modern transformation or modernity in three regions -- China,
India and the Ottoman Empire -- which conventional historiography
identifies as non-European, and therefore, by implication, outside
of modernity or only tangentially linked to it as its victim. In
other words, this work looks at modernity without reference to any
'idealised' criteria of what qualifies as 'modern' or not, studying
the negotiation and legacies of the early modern period for the
modern nation state. It focuses on the experience of modernity of
non-European regions for they play a crucial role in the new phase
of transformational patterns may have deeper roots than are
generally assumed.
Rejecting European characterisations of 'eastern' states as
Oriental despotisms, the volume conceives of the early modern state
as a negotiated enterprise, one that questions the assumption that
state centralisation must be a key metric of success in
modernisation. Among other topics, the book highlights: state
formations in the three empires; legislation pertaining to
taxation, property, police reform, the autonomy of legal sphere,
the interaction of different types of law, law's role in
governance, administrative practice, negotiated settlements and
courts as sites of negotiation, the blurred boundaries between
formal law and informal mediation; the ability of 18th century Qing
and Ottoman imperial governments to accommodate diverse local
particularities within an overreaching structure; and the pattern
of regional development pointing to the accommodative institutional
capacity of the Mughal empire.
Tracing the complex histories of state or imperial formations
through legal, administrative, and economic developments, the book
argues that modernity as such no longer stands for experience of
'alienation' from specific historical trajectories, a
characterisation which often haunted the 'modern' histories of the
British empire in India, Ottoman reform state or the Communist
Chinese state. Bringing together historians of the Qing, the Mughal
and the Ottoman empires, this volume, principally, explores
categories of historical explanation that span the European and
non-European, pre-modern and modern experiences.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
