Realms of Freedom in Modern China (The Making of Modern Freedom) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080475232X ISBN 13: 9780804752329

Publisher: Stanford University Press, 2005

Synopsis

The fifteenth and final volume of the series The Making of Modern Freedom, this book explores a variety of issues surrounding questions of human rights and freedom in China. The chapters suggest very significant realms of freedom, with or without the protection of law, in the personal, social, and economic lives of people in China before the twentieth century. This was recognized, and partly codified, in the early twentieth century, when legal experts sought to establish a republic of laws and limits. The process of legal reform, however, would be placed firmly in the service of strengthening the post-imperial Chinese nation-state, culminating after 1949 in despotism unparalleled in Chinese history. Nevertheless, the last decades of the twentieth century and the first years of our own would witness a slow, steady, but unmistakable reassertion of realms of personal and communal autonomy that show, even in an era of strong states, at least the prospect of institutionalized freedoms.

About this title

About the Author

William C. Kirby is the Edith and Benjamin Geisinger Professor of History and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University.

From the Back Cover

The fifteenth and final volume of the series The Making of Modern Freedom, this book explores a variety of issues surrounding questions of human rights and freedom in China. The chapters suggest very significant realms of freedom, with or without the protection of law, in the personal, social, and economic lives of people in China before the twentieth century. This was recognized, and partly codified, in the early twentieth century, when legal experts sought to establish a republic of laws and limits. The process of legal reform, however, would be placed firmly in the service of strengthening the post-imperial Chinese nation-state, culminating after 1949 in despotism unparalleled in Chinese history. Nevertheless, the last decades of the twentieth century and the first years of our own would witness a slow, steady, but unmistakable reassertion of realms of personal and communal autonomy that show, even in an era of strong states, at least the prospect of institutionalized freedoms.

Edition details

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080475232X
• ISBN 13: 9780804752329
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416
• Editor: Kirby William C.