Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing

Reinventing Modern China
Reinventing Modern China: Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing, by Huaiyin Li, offers the first systematic analysis of writings on modern Chinese history by historians in China from the early twentieth century to the present. It traces the construction of major interpretive schemes, the evolution of dominant historical narratives, and the unfolding of debates on the most controversial issues in different periods. Placing history-writing in the context of political rivalry and ideological contestation, Li explicates how the historians’ dedication to faithfully reconstructing the past was compromised by their commitment to an imagined trajectory of history that fit their present-day agenda and served their needs of political legitimation.

October 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3608-5 / $52.00 (CLOTH)