Winner of the 2020 Baldridge Prize The rise of East Asia from the
ashes of World War II in the late twentieth century has led to
searching questions about the role the region will play in the
world. The possibility that China will overtake the United States
as a super power suggests the twenty-first century could become an
Asian century. Given the dynamism of a new Asia, this study
provides a crucial analysis of the origins and development of
modern thought in East Asia and the United States, reevaluating the
influence of the United States on East Asia in the twentieth
century and giving greater voice to East Asians in the growth of
their own ideas of modernity. While an abundance of scholarship
exists on postwar modernization, there is a gap in the prewar
origins and development of modern ideas in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth century. In that time, influential intellectuals on
both sides of the Pacific shaped modernity by rejecting the old
order, and embracing progress, the new domain of science,
democracy, racial relativism, internationalism, and civic duty.
"The book is a seminal work that recalibrates an established
narrative of modernity, the West as teacher and the East as pupil."
- Prof. Dr. Andreas Niehaus, Head Department Languages and
Cultures, Ghent University "Jon Thares Davidann forces a course
correction in modernity studies with his insightful new book
showing how from roughly 1860 to 1950 intellectuals from Japan,
China, the United States, and Korea contributed to a hybrid form of
modernization in East Asia with indigenous roots." - James I.
Matray, California State University, Chico "This book is
particularly timely given the current interest in the rise of East
Asia in global history. Rarely can one interpret both East Asian
and American thoughts as exquisitely as Dr. Davidann. He also tries
to transcend both modernization theory and
anti-imperialist/anti-American perspective. A very ambitious and
important contribution to transpacific intellectual history." -
Hiroo Nakajima, Osaka University "This interactive intellectual
history presents an effective argument against civilizational
essentialism. It details links in ideas across the Pacific, yet
shows that East Asian thinkers led in building the versions of
modernity that yielded divergent trajectories for China, Japan, and
the U.S." - Patrick Manning, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of World
History, Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh "This insightful and
far-reaching study effectively reframes the scholarship on the
development of modern East Asia. Arguing that historians too often
have overstated the extent of westernization, Davidann reexamines
in rich and colorful detail the roles played by many prominent East
Asians and Americans in constructing hybrid modernities. In doing
so, he significantly expands our understanding of the modern world
on both sides of the Pacific." Joseph M. Henning, Associate
Professor of History, Undergraduate Program Director, International
and Global Studies "In this groundbreaking book, Davidann
dismantles well-worn assumptions about the uniqueness of Western
modernity. The remarkable power of East Asian economies demands new
explanations for the development of modernity, departing from a
singular concept of westernization. Through a close analysis of the
intellectual careers of numerous Asians as well as interested
Westerners, Davidann argues persuasively for the adoption of new
forms of modernity that are unique to East Asian history. The
author effectively demonstrates that East Asians modernized on
their own terms, creating new social forms and definitions of
modernity. The book stands as a much-needed antidote to
modernization theory from a previous generation of global
historical scholarship, and thus should find an important place on
the bookshelf of what is often called "The New World History." -
Prof. Rick Warner, Wabash College, President, World History
Association, 2016-2017 Jon Davidann has written a wide-ranging and
well documented exploration of the intellectual contacts and
ideological influences across three of the main global centers of
scientific and technological transformations and their political
ramifications from the late-nineteenth century to the aftermath of
World War II. The depths he manages to plumb in his analyses of the
writings and public advocacy across cultures of a constellation of
major Japanese, Chinese and American thinkers is remarkable for a
comparative study and will become essential reading for scholars
and students of this turbulent era in world history. - Michael
Adas, University at New Brunswick A thoughtful and timely book! Jon
Thares Davidann examines the emergence of modernity in the late
19th and 20th centuries by analyzing contributions from prominent
East Asian and American intellectuals. In engaging, clear prose, he
advances provocative arguments that challenge assumptions that
equate modernity with Westernization. Highly recommended! - Emily
Rosenberg, author of Transnational Currents in a Shrinking World
(2014)
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