At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the vocabulary of civility and civilization is very much at the forefront of political debate. Most of these debates proceed as if the meaning of these words were self-evident. This is where Civilizing Emotions intervenes, tracing the history of the concepts of civility and civilization and thus adding a level of self-reflexivity to the present debates. Unlike previous histories, Civilizing Emotions takes a global perspective, highlighting the roles of civility and civilization in the creation of a new and hierarchized global order in the era of high imperialism and its entanglements with the developments in a number of well-chosen European and Asian countries. Emotions were at the core of the practices linked to the creation of a new global order in the nineteenth century. Civilizing Emotions explores why and how emotions were an asset in civilizing peoples and societies - their control and management, but also their creation and their ascription to different societies and social groups. The study is a contribution to the history of emotions, to global history, and to the history of concepts, three rapidly developing and innovative research areas which are here being brought together for the first time.

Die Eroffnung des ersten Irrenhauses in Kanton (1898) durch einen amerikanischen Missionsarzt markiert den Beginn der awestlicheno Psychiatrie in China. Wahrend der Republikzeit (1911-1949) wurde sie - insbesondere die Idee der Institution aIrrenhauso - von reformorientierten Intellektuellen im Rahmen ihres amodernistischen Diskurseso als zentrale Notwendigkeit fur Chinas Rettung und Erneuerung propagiert. Die vorliegende Monographie fragt nicht nur nach den Hintergrunden und nach den Bemuhungen, das spezifisch westliche medizinische Vokabular in die chinesische Sprache einzugliedern, sondern wesentlich auch nach den medizinischen Sicht- und Handhabungsweisen im indigenen Kontext. Wie haben chinesische Arzte Irresein wahrgenommen und behandelt? Warum ergab sich im chinesischen Kontext niemals die Notwendigkeit, spezielle Hauser zur Behandlung von aWahnsinnigeno einzurichten? "ainnovative, well-structured and immensely usefula" Medical History. (Franz Steiner 2000)