The State, Identity, and the National Question in China and Japan
eBook - PDF

The State, Identity, and the National Question in China and Japan

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The State, Identity, and the National Question in China and Japan

About this book

The first decades of the twentieth century witnessed an explosion of nationalist sentiment in East Asia, as in Europe. This comprehensive work explores how radical Chinese and Japanese thinkers committed to social change in this turbulent era addressed issues concerning national identity, social revolution, and the role of the national state in achieving socio-economic development. Focusing on the adaptation of anarchism and then Marxism-Leninism to non-European contexts, Germaine Hoston shows how Chinese and Japanese theorists attempted to reconcile a relatively new appreciation for the nation-state with their allegiance to a vision of internationalist socialist revolution culminating in stateless socialism.


Given the influence of Western experience on Marxism, Chinese and Japanese theorists found the Marxian national question to be not merely one of whether the "working man has no country," but rather the much more fundamental issue of the relative value of Eastern and Western cultures. Marxism, argues Hoston, thus placed native Marxists in tension with their own heritage and national identity. The author traces efforts to resolve this tension throughout the first half of the twentieth century, and concludes by examining how the tension persists, as Chinese and Japanese dissidents seek identity-affirming modernity in accordance with the Western democratic model.

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Yes, you can access The State, Identity, and the National Question in China and Japan by Germaine A. Hoston in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Chinese History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Preface
  7. Introduction: Identity, the National Question, and Revolutionary Change in China and Japan
  8. Chapter One: Marxism, Revolution, and the National Question
  9. Part One: The National Question and the Political Theory of Marxism in Asia
  10. Part Two: Anarchism, Nationalism, and the Challenge of Bolshevism
  11. Part Three: History, The State, and Revolutionary Change: Marxist Analyses of the Chinese and Japanese States
  12. Part Four: Outcomes: The Reconciliation of Marxism eith National Identity
  13. Notes
  14. Select Bibliography
  15. Index