| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Xiaorong Han. Chinese Discourses on the Peasant, 1900–1949. (SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture.) Albany: State University of New York Press. 2005. Pp. xi, 259. $75.00.
With the collapse of the Qing dynasty in the early twentieth century a government structure and political culture that had evolved with remarkable continuity for two millennia suddenly disappeared, to be replaced by political chaos and widespread despair. Relentless pressure for increased privileges and power by Western nations and Japan increasingly cast doubt on the future of China as an independent entity. In these circumstances, national survival became the central preoccupation of the educated class in China.	1
Until the late nineteenth century, the very concept of nation was new to Chinese intellectuals. China had been regarded above all as a culture, one that derived meaning and legitimacy from tradition; change was anathema. But after several decades of confrontation with hostile nation-states, intellectuals in China increasingly came to believe that China must change radically or be devoured in a Darwinian struggle. The failure of the Republic following the Revolution of 1911, and ensuing warlord rapacity, made it clear that national survival would require more than superficial alteration of governmental structure; nothing less than comprehensive transformation in the way Chinese people thought and acted could save China. For many intellectuals the peasantry, the great majority of the Chinese population, came to be seen as the key to national salvation.	. . .

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