目录 Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Historical Background Chapter 3 Political and International Relations Images of China,1949 to 1971/1972 Chapter 4 Trends in Political and Foreign Relations Images of China, 1971/1972 to 2001 Chapter 5 Political and General Western Images of China in the Twenty-first Century Chapter 6 Images of the Chinese Economy, Population Policy and Environment at the End of the Twentieth Century Chapter 7 The Twenty-first Century: Images of the Chinese Economy, Population Issues and Environment Chapter 8 Socio-cultural Images of the Peoples Republic of China Chapter 9 Conclusion Brief Timeline List of Works Cited
精彩内容 Marco Polo has become legendary both in China and the West. He came from one great civilization but attempted to understand another one and to interpret it to his own people. In particular, he is the fi rst Westerner to leave a detailed account of China and consequently plays a major role in Western images of China. For those achievements he deserves great credit.
He is the first in a long line of writers who have made China a part of the intellectual life of the West. At times this great East Asian country has been a model for the West, at others a negative example. At times it has loomed large in the imagination of the West, declining in importance at others.
This book focuses on Western images of the People’s Republic of China, that is, of the country since 1949. It aims to relate and analyse some of the most important of these images, and to set them within an appropriate historical and intellectual context. It aims to explore who or which group has tended to create images and, to some extent, how they have done so. It adopts a chronological and topical approach, with consideration of political, economic and social images, as well as those relating to foreign affairs.
This is an important subject, because it concerns cross-cultural relations, and how peoples see each other. There has long been a tendency in the West to see China and other civilizations as ‘exotic’, which can signify a way of admiring something very strange but is more often a sign of criticism, even contempt. This trend may be weaker than it used to be, but it is far from dead. The policy one country adopts towards another can affect its perceptions but the converse is also true, in other words that images can infl uence policy. This adds to the importance of the subject of Western images of China, because how these two major civilizations see and relate to each other matters for the world as a whole.
So what precisely are the Western images of China that are the subject of this book? I define images as perceptions that are important enough to impinge on the consciousness of the observer. Usually, they are recorded in some way that makes them accessible. A chance conver sat ion by a Westerner about China might be an image and I feel entitled to include such conversations I have had myself, or those that are accessible to me in another way. Images also include pictures and some of these are included in this book, most of them taken by me or a friend.
This is a large topic and it is not possible to deal with all kinds of images. Images included are almost all of people or relevant to them. Many types are completely irrelevant to this coverage and are left out, despite their importance or interest, such as those dealing with scenery, biology, or with the wild animals of China.
以下为对购买帮助不大的评价