Maurice Meisner - Böcker

The Mozartian Historian: Essays on the Works of Joseph R. Levenson is a profound tribute to the intellectual legacy of Joseph Levenson, an innovative historian whose interpretations of Chinese history reshaped the discipline. Edited by Maurice Meisner and Rhoads Murphey, this volume emerged from the shared sense of loss and intellectual urgency felt by colleagues after Levenson’s untimely death. More than a commemorative festschrift, the book serves as an analytical deep dive into the themes and methods that defined Levenson’s work, emphasizing their lasting relevance to historical and intellectual inquiry.Levenson’s scholarship, particularly in his seminal trilogy Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, challenged conventional historiographical norms by intertwining Chinese history with universal historical discourse. His comparative approach revealed the unique dimensions of Chinese traditions while situating them within broader human experiences of modernity and change. The essays in this collection reflect on Levenson’s radical conception of historical continuity, his dialectical understanding of change, and his incisive critique of cultural determinism. Balancing rigorous analysis with personal recollections, the contributors illuminate the intellectual audacity and humanity that defined Levenson’s career, making this book a vital resource for historians, Sinologists, and anyone engaged with the enduring tensions between tradition and modernity.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976.

The Mozartian Historian: Essays on the Works of Joseph R. Levenson is a profound tribute to the intellectual legacy of Joseph Levenson, an innovative historian whose interpretations of Chinese history reshaped the discipline. Edited by Maurice Meisner and Rhoads Murphey, this volume emerged from the shared sense of loss and intellectual urgency felt by colleagues after Levenson’s untimely death. More than a commemorative festschrift, the book serves as an analytical deep dive into the themes and methods that defined Levenson’s work, emphasizing their lasting relevance to historical and intellectual inquiry.Levenson’s scholarship, particularly in his seminal trilogy Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, challenged conventional historiographical norms by intertwining Chinese history with universal historical discourse. His comparative approach revealed the unique dimensions of Chinese traditions while situating them within broader human experiences of modernity and change. The essays in this collection reflect on Levenson’s radical conception of historical continuity, his dialectical understanding of change, and his incisive critique of cultural determinism. Balancing rigorous analysis with personal recollections, the contributors illuminate the intellectual audacity and humanity that defined Levenson’s career, making this book a vital resource for historians, Sinologists, and anyone engaged with the enduring tensions between tradition and modernity.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976.

When MAO'S CHINA first appeared in 1977, it was hailed as the single most useful general volume on recent Chinese history, covering every important question of the time with clarity and amazing insight. Now, Meisner brings the third edition of his definitive work, with new information provided throughout the classic study. Including a whole new section in Part Six, 'Deng Xiaoping and the Origins of Chinese Capitalism: 1976-1998', Meisner assesses the country's uneasy relationship with democracy, socialism and capitalism. Retaining the elegance, lucidity and comprehensiveness he is known for, Meisner moves far beyond his previous work to paint a never-before-seen portrait of the political and social realities of China on the brink of the new Millennium, and the global implications of its rise to economic and political power.

Revolutionary and ruler, Marxist and nationalist, liberator and despot, Mao Zedong takes a place among the iconic leaders of the twentieth century. In this book, Maurice Meisner offers a balanced portrait of the man who defined modern China. From his role as leader of a communist revolution in a war-torn and largely rural country to the disasters of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the relationship between Mao's ideas and his political action is highly disputed. With unparalleled authority, Meisner shows how Mao's unique sinification of Marxism provides the key to looking at this extraordinary political career. The first part of the book is devoted to Mao's revolutionary leadership before 1949, in particular the influence of the liberal and anarchist ideas of the May Fourth era, his discovery of Marxism, Leninism and his conviction that peasants held the potential for revolution. In the second part, Meisner analyses Mao's early successes as a nationalist unifier and modernizer, the failure of his socialism and his eventual transformation into a tyrant.

Revolutionary and ruler, Marxist and nationalist, liberator and despot, Mao Zedong takes a place among the iconic leaders of the twentieth century. In this book, Maurice Meisner offers a balanced portrait of the man who defined modern China. From his role as leader of a communist revolution in a war-torn and largely rural country to the disasters of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the relationship between Mao's ideas and his political action is highly disputed. With unparalleled authority, Meisner shows how Mao's unique sinification of Marxism provides the key to looking at this extraordinary political career. The first part of the book is devoted to Mao's revolutionary leadership before 1949, in particular the influence of the liberal and anarchist ideas of the May Fourth era, his discovery of Marxism, Leninism and his conviction that peasants held the potential for revolution. In the second part, Meisner analyses Mao's early successes as a nationalist unifier and modernizer, the failure of his socialism and his eventual transformation into a tyrant.

These essays consider the implications for Chinese socialism of the repudiation of the Cultural Revolution and the legacy of Mao Zedong as well as the meaning of the new definition and direction Mao's successors have given socialism. The themes have been selected for conceptual coherence within a socialist problematic of social change. Representing anthropology, art history, economics, history, literature and politics, various inquiries point in a twofold direction - the meaning of socialism for China and the meaning of Chinese Socialism for socialism as a global phenomenon - "meaning" not in some abstract sense but rather as it is constituted in the process of political ideological activity, which articulates and defines social relationships within China as well as China's relationship to the world.