Sublime

(Chow 1997; Duara 1995:4 and chap. i…

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Project 985.

China grew quantitatively, not qualitatively. Part of the reason, Elvin argued, was the inward turn we have noticed already: the shrinking of China’s external contacts as the Ming abandoned the sea.

Turning their back on a maritime future may have been a concession to their gentry officials (who disliked eunuch influence), but it was also a bow to financial constraints and the supreme priority of dynastic survival.

On the eve of the close encounter with the West, China’s distinctive political trajectory (still dominated by its symbiotic relationship with Inner Asia) propelled it not towards an all-powerful oriental despotism (imagined by Europeans) – which might have permitted drastic change in the face of external challenge – but instead still further toward

Commodified Hawaiian culture—the “luau,” the “hula girl,” and “aloha”—became part of the American vernacular and everyday life.

the ancient Chinese system as effective in producing “educated acquiescence.”