The Magic of Concepts: History and the Economic in Twentieth-Century China

Rebecca E. Karl

Published by Duke University Press 2017

The Magic of Concepts

History and the Economic in Twentieth-Century China

Rebecca E. Karl

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822373322

Overview
Contents

About this book

Rebecca E. Karl interrogates the concept and practice of "the economic" as it was understood in China in the 1930s and the 1980s and 90s, showing how the use of Eurocentric philosophies, narratives, and conceptions of the economic that exist outside lived experiences fail to capture modern China's complex history.

Author / Editor information

Rebecca E. Karl is Associate Professor of History at New York University. She is the author of Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A Concise History and Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, and co-translator (with Xueping Zhong) of Cai Xiang's Revolution and Its Narratives: China’s Socialist Literary and Cultural Imaginaries, 1949-1966, all also published by Duke University Press. She co-translated and coedited (with Lydia H. Liu and Dorothy Ko) The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory.

Reviews

"A challenging and often compelling perspective on modern Chinese history."

-- Terry Peach European Journal of the History of Economic Thought

"An intelligent analysis of important historiographical issues in modern Chinese history."

-- Margherita Zanasi American Historical Review

“Since The Magic of Concepts came out, I have found myself constantly recommending it to friends and colleagues, and in particular to friends and colleagues who are not scholars of modern China. And not just because I assume all modern China specialists already pay attention to Rebecca Karl’s work; rather, it is because she achieves in this book what historians often strive and fail to do, or at least fail to do well—to truly engage the global and the present from the specific geographical and chronological perspective of our chosen historical subjects.”

-- Fabio Lanza Journal of Asian Studies

"Karl’s book . . . is an important contribution to the fields of Chinese, global, and economic history. . . . Her argument challenges us to ever more carefully observe our perspective and level of analysis, deconstruct our models and tools of research, and realize the 'magic' of the concepts we utilize and repeat."

-- Thorben Pelzer Connections

"The Magic of Concepts makes a powerful case that the limitations of empiricism and reified consciousness have foreclosed realms of inquiry that possess considerable potential to complicate and deepen our understanding of social history. . . . This book is eloquent testimony to the need for historians to pursue a serious engagement with such theory in our training and in our research, not just to open new possibilities in our scholarship but to make sense of our own increasingly unstable historical moment."

-- Jake Werner Journal of Social History

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction. Repetition and Magic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Economic, China, World History: A Critique of Pure Ideology Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2. The Economic and the State: The Asiatic Mode of Production Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	40
3. The Economic as Transhistory: Temporality, the Market, and the Austrian School Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
4. The Economic as Lived Experience: Semicolonialism and China Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
5. The Economic as Culture and the Culture of the Economic: Filming Shanghai Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
Afterword Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	160
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 232

eBook

Published: March 2, 2017
ISBN: 9780822373322