This book explores global history as an emerging field of scholarly studies in China today. Readers are invited to rethink the origin of global history in China and to examine its current state. Chinese scholarship is rooted in a warm appreciation of globalization in the age of Opening-up and Reform and presented as a trendy transnational intellectual movement at the opening of the twenty-first century. On the one hand, global history claims an identity of the “new” eager to criticize the Eurocentric bias embedded in the narratives of the “old,” ones from world history; on the other hand, as an emerging field, it is yet to face competitions from national histories and area studies, which are nurtured by latest state initiatives with outspoken political agendas. As a whole, global history captures Chinese scholars’ tenacious interest in studying globalization through the lens of history. This book will interest historians, China scholars, and those trying to grasp the “Chinese perspective” on the world.
