This collection of essays represents current research in modern (post-1800) Chinese history. All contributors are former students of Professor C. Martin Wilbur, one of the great names in the China field over the past forty years, who recently retired from a long tenure as modern Chinese historian at Columbia University. While diverse in their subje

This collection of essays represents current research in modern (post-1800) Chinese history. All contributors are former students of Professor C. Martin Wilbur, one of the great names in the China field over the past forty years, who recently retired from a long tenure as modern Chinese historian at Columbia University. While diverse in their subje

One of the world's most ruthless warriors, Chinggis Khan conquered nearly all of Asia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, transforming the scattered and impoverished Mongols into an exceptionally proud and powerful nation. In this riveting and thoroughly researched portrait, Japan's celebrated epic novelist drives at the root of the khan's great desires and insatiable appetite for supremacy.

Beginning with his birth in 1162, "The Blue Wolf" follows the crucial alliances that led to Chinggis Khan's great campaigns in North China, Bukhara, and Samarkand, as well as the state of Khorazm. The khan was obsessed with his ancestry, not knowing whether he was the descendent of the blue wolf (mythical progenitor of the Mongols and the noble Borjigin line) or merely the bastard son of a Merkid tribesman. For Inoue Yasushi, Chinggis's ancestral anxiety lies at the center of his relentless push for empire. He struggled with his paternity as intensely as he fought his battles, and his victories stood as proof that the brave warrior was a true Mongol.

The question of paternity also formed the largest wedge between Chinggis and his eldest son, Jochi, a boy born in captivity and of similarly questionable heritage. Hailed for its sophistication and rich imagining of a remote world, "The Blue Wolf" puts a human cast on a legendary force that changed Asia and the world.

China's increasing prominence on the global stage has caused consternation and controversy among Western thinkers, especially since the financial crisis of 2008. But what do Chinese intellectuals themselves have to say about their country's newfound influence and power? Voices from the Chinese Century brings together a selection of essays from representative leading thinkers that open a window into public debate in China today on fundamental questions of China and the world-past, present, and future. The voices in this volume include figures from each of China's main intellectual clusters: liberals, the New Left, and New Confucians. In genres from scholarly analyses to social media posts, often using Party-approved language that hides indirect criticism, these essayists offer a wide range of perspectives on how to understand China's history and its place in the twenty-first-century world. They explore questions such as the relationship of political and economic reforms; the distinctiveness of China's history and what to take from its traditions; what can or should be learned from the West; and how China fits into today's eruption of populist anger and challenges to the global order. The fifteen original translations in this volume not only offer insight into contemporary China but also prompt us to ask what Chinese intellectuals might have to teach Europe and North America about the world's most pressing problems.

Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) was one of Japan's greatest poets and translators from classical Japanese. Her output was extraordinary, including twenty volumes of poetry and the most popular translation of the ancient classic "The Tale of Genji" into modern Japanese. The mother of eleven children, she was a prominent feminist and frequent contributor to Japan's first feminist journal of creative writing, "Seito" (Blue stocking).

In 1928 at a highpoint of Sino-Japanese tensions, Yosano was invited by the South Manchurian Railway Company to travel around areas with a prominent Japanese presence in China's northeast. This volume, translated for the first time into English, is her account of that journey. Though a portrait of China and the Chinese, the chronicle is most revealing as a portrait of modern Japanese representations of China -- and as a study of Yosano herself.

Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) was one of Japan's greatest poets and translators from classical Japanese. Her output was extraordinary, including twenty volumes of poetry and the most popular translation of the ancient classic "The Tale of Genji" into modern Japanese. The mother of eleven children, she was a prominent feminist and frequent contributor to Japan's first feminist journal of creative writing, "Seito" (Blue stocking).

In 1928 at a highpoint of Sino-Japanese tensions, Yosano was invited by the South Manchurian Railway Company to travel around areas with a prominent Japanese presence in China's northeast. This volume, translated for the first time into English, is her account of that journey. Though a portrait of China and the Chinese, the chronicle is most revealing as a portrait of modern Japanese representations of China -- and as a study of Yosano herself.