The Making of Modern China (1600-1949) Author: Li Huaiyin Publisher: Guangxi Normal University Press

Introduction
A book on modern Chinese history with a broad vision and new insights. Where did today's China come from? This book focuses on three key factors: geopolitics, fiscal structure, and political identity. It comprehensively discusses the formation process of modern China from the 17th to the 20th century, and explores the unique path of modern China's formation from the perspective of world history.
Recommended by Zhong Weimin, Zhao Shiyu, Chen Feng, Wu Chongqing and Li Lifeng. Produced by Daxuewen.
【Content Introduction】
Where did today's China come from? How did modern China avoid the fate of the collapse and division of the multi-ethnic empire and establish a highly effective and long-term stable country? What is the historical rationality and uniqueness of its territorial composition, ethnic composition and political power? Can the Chinese state continue to maintain a "big and strong" pattern in the future? This book convincingly answers the above challenging questions.
This book is a work on modern Chinese history with a broad vision and new insights. The book mainly focuses on the re-understanding of the process of the formation of modern China and the problems existing in the historical writing of modern Chinese history. From the perspective of global history, the author focuses on the three elements of geopolitics, finance and military, and political identity, comprehensively discusses the formation process of modern China from the 17th to the 20th century, and explores the unique path of the formation of modern China from the perspective of world history. The book has a broad vision, rich content, and unique insights. For researchers and ordinary readers who are trying to understand the past and future of modern China, it is a wonderful work that should not be missed.
【Book Highlights】
1. Book No. 005 of the “University Questions: Practical Social Sciences Series”, a new book by Li Huaiyin, a well-known scholar of modern Chinese history and edited by “super professor” Huang Zongzhi;
2. Zhong Weimin, Zhao Shiyu, Chen Feng, Wu Chongqing, and Li Lifeng unanimously recommended, and the Journal of Asian Studies and Twentieth Century China were reviewed;
3. New insights emerge one after another. This book has unique insights into the geopolitical, ethnic relations, traditional governance and other issues that have influenced the formation of modern China, the analysis of the traditional order in East Asia and the theory of modern sovereign states, and the reflection on Eurocentrism and the narrative methods of revolution and modernization.
4. New research methods. Adopting the research path of "macro-history", the author strives to break away from the quagmire of the emptiness of grand historical narratives and the fragmentation of daily historical narratives from a comprehensive perspective, sublimating many micro-studies into macro-considerations, and establishing a brand-new analytical structure;
5. Broad vision. Starting from the perspective of global history, this book places modern China's national transformation in the perspective of modern world history to understand and examine it. Based on a deep understanding of Chinese history, it convincingly explains the uniqueness of the formation of China's modern sovereign state;
6. Long time span. It comprehensively discusses the formation process of modern China from the 17th to the 20th century, breaking the barriers of ancient and modern times, modern and contemporary periods that Chinese historians at home and abroad are accustomed to, and treating the history of China's national transformation that has lasted for several centuries as a complete process with different links and a coherent whole.
7. Strong concern for reality. Standing at the height of global geopolitics in the new millennium, re-exploring the most challenging issues in understanding Chinese history today, and thinking about deep-seated issues such as contemporary Chinese national development and transformation;
8. Rich historical materials. The book makes full use of a large number of original archives, personal memories and official publications, and the arguments in the book are all supported by solid documentary materials and data charts.
【Recommended by famous experts】
From a global history perspective and based on a deep understanding of Chinese history, this book convincingly explains the uniqueness of the formation of China's modern sovereign state: China is the only modern country built on the foundation of the past dynasty (empire) and successfully transformed, and its transformation took a long time and was a complex and arduous process, which is also unprecedented in the world. Understanding this point is the key to understanding contemporary China. This book's research on many issues such as geopolitics, ethnic relations, and traditional governance, its analysis of East Asian traditional order and modern sovereign state theory, and its reflection on Eurocentrism and the narrative of revolution and modernization are all new insights, making it a rare masterpiece in recent years.
——Zhong Weimin, Professor of History, Tsinghua University
The importance of this book lies firstly in the fact that the author is committed to transcending the previous dominant narratives of revolution and modernization to re-delineate the history of China's transformation into a modern sovereign state; secondly, the author forms an analytical framework with three elements: geostrategy, fiscal structure, and political identity, to explain the occurrence of this transformation process. The reason why these three elements are important is that in recent years, multidisciplinary scholars have made great progress in regional and cross-regional research, including frontier ethnic studies, Ming and Qing fiscal history research, and political and cultural identity research, which has enabled many micro-studies to be sublimated into macro-considerations such as this book.
——Zhao Shiyu, Professor of History, Peking University
Exploring the "formation of modern China" is not only the responsibility of historians, but also of general readers. Professor Li Huaiyin's new book is different from the previous so-called grand historical narratives and "fragmented" subtle examinations. It has established a brand-new analytical structure. Although this brand-new analytical structure follows the research path of macro-history, it presents four major characteristics: First, it focuses on the elements of the formation of modern countries - territory (territory, border), population (ethnic group), government (national governance capacity), and sovereignty; second, it focuses on the selection of key variables such as geostrategy, fiscal structure and political identity for detailed and appropriate discussion, and investigates the relationship and interaction between various categories; third, it breaks the boundaries of social forms and regards the nearly three hundred years of Chinese state-society transformation as a complete process of inheritance, change and connection; fourth, it places the state-society transformation of modern China in the perspective of the world's history to understand and observe it. The author's discussion is unmatched by similar works.
——Chen Feng, Professor of the School of History and the Center for Chinese Traditional Culture Research, Wuhan University
Professor Li Huaiyin has delved deeply into the historical reality of China over a long period of time, perfectly combining the macro-historical perspective with the analysis of the meso-geopolitical, fiscal and political identity mechanisms, abandoning the emptiness of grand historical narratives and the fragmentation of daily historical narratives, and convincingly answering why China can be both large and strong and full of resilience and inertia in development, and why it can transcend the evolutionary paradigm of "from empire to nation-state". This book is full of profound historical insight, and it responds sharply and decisively to various arguments that challenge the legitimacy of the modern Chinese state.
——Wu Chongqing, Professor of Philosophy, Sun Yat-sen University
Where did today's China come from? How did modern China avoid the fate of the collapse and division of a multi-ethnic empire, and how did it establish a highly effective and long-term stable party-state? What historical rationality and uniqueness does its territorial composition, ethnic composition and political regime have? Can the Chinese state continue to maintain a "big and strong" pattern in the future? Today, when the "grand narrative" has long been disenchanted and historical research is increasingly "fragmented", Professor Li Huaiyin boldly raised the banner of "macrohistory", focusing on the three major elements of geopolitics, finance and military, and political identity, and reinterpreted the three and a half centuries of Chinese history, telling the story of China's transformation from an ethnic state to a territorial state to a sovereign state, and finally forming a highly centralized and unified modern state, convincingly answering the above challenging questions. This book has a broad vision, rich content, profound ideas, and unique insights. For researchers and ordinary readers who are trying to understand the past and future of modern China, it is a wonderful work that should not be missed.
——Li Lifeng, Professor of School of Government and Xueheng Research Institute, Nanjing University
Li Huaiyin's new book comprehensively expounds on the process of state-building in modern China from the 17th to the 20th century. The author makes full use of original archives, private memories and official publications to place the process of modern China's formation in the context of a fiscal-military perspective and a big history framework. He analyzes the factors such as the geopolitical pattern, fiscal structure and political identity that constrain the process of state formation in detail, and points out that the unique formation path of the Qing Dynasty state is crucial to understanding the continuity of modern China's territorial and ethnic composition. The book is fascinating and not only powerfully demonstrates the key role of geopolitical pattern, fiscal structure and identity shaping in the state transformation of modern China, but also echoes the "China-centrism" in the research path, based on China's own experience to understand China's historical trajectory. The author convincingly argues that to correctly understand the process of state formation in modern China, it is necessary to get rid of the biases and speculations caused by political and ideological factors in the study of modern Chinese history, and explore China's unique path from the perspective of world history.
——The Journal of Asian Studies