Imperial-Time-Order is an engagingly written critical study on a persistent historical way of thinking in modern China. Defined as normalization of unification and moralization of time, Qian suggests, the imperial-time-order signifies a temporal structure of empire that has continued to shape the way modern China developed itself conceptually. Weaving together intellectual debates with literary and media representations of imperial history since the late Qing period, ranging from novels, stage plays, films, to television series, Qian traces the different temporalities of each period and takes “time” as the analytical node by which issues of empire, nation, family, morality, individual and collective subjectivity are constructed and contested.

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 1967.

The Confucian doctrine of tianxia (all under heaven) outlines a unitary worldview that cherishes global justice and transcends social, geographic, and political divides. For contemporary scholars, it has held myriad meanings, from the articulation of a cultural imaginary and political strategy to a moralistic commitment and a cosmological vision. The contributors to Chinese Visions of World Order examine the evolution of tianxia's meaning and practice in the Han dynasty and its mutations in modern times. They attend to its varied interpretations, its relation to realpolitik, and its revival in twenty-first-century China. They also investigate tianxia's birth in antiquity and its role in empire building, invoke its cultural universalism as a new global imagination for the contemporary world, analyze its resonance and affinity with cosmopolitanism in East-West cultural relations, discover its persistence in China's socialist internationalism and third world agenda, and critique its deployment as an official state ideology. In so doing, they demonstrate how China draws on its past to further its own alternative vision of the current international system. Contributors. Daniel A. Bell, Chishen Chang, Kuan-Hsing Chen, Prasenjit Duara, Hsieh Mei-yu, Haiyan Lee, Mark Edward Lewis, Lin Chun, Viren Murthy, Lisa Rofel, Ban Wang, Wang Hui, Yiqun Zhou

Wei Hsien Wan builds on the work of David Horrell and Travis Williams for his argument that the letter of 1 Peter engages in a subtle, calculated form of resistance to Rome, that has often gone undetected. Whilst previous discussion of the topic has remained largely focused on the letter's stance toward specific Roman institutions, such as the emperor, household structures, and the imperial cults, Wan takes the conversation beyond these confines and examines 1 Peter's critique of the Roman Empire in terms of its ideology or worldview. Using the work of James Scott to conceptualize ideological resistance against domination, Wan considers how the imperial cults of Anatolia and 1 Peter offered distinct constructions of time and space-that is, how they envisioned reality differently. Insofar as these differences led to divergent ways of conceiving the social order, they acquired political power and generated potential for conflict. Wan thus argues that 1 Peter confronts Rome on a cosmic scale with its alternative construal of time and space, and examines the evidence that the Petrine author consciously, if cautiously, interrogated the imperial imagination at its most foundational levels, and set forth in its place a theocentric, Christological understanding of the world.

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 1967.

'An exceptional account.' Prospect 'Enlightening.' Spectator For the first time in millennia we live without formal empires. But that doesn't mean we don't feel their presence rumbling through history. The Great Imperial Hangover examines how the world's imperial legacies are still shaping the thorniest issues we face today. From Russia's incursions in the Ukraine to Brexit; from Trump's 'America-first' policy to China's forays into Africa; from Modi's India to the hotbed of the Middle East, Puri provides a bold new framework for understanding the world's complex rivalries and politics. Organised by region, and covering vital topics such as security, foreign policy, national politics and commerce, The Great Imperial Hangover combines gripping history and astute analysis to explain why the history of empire affects us all in profound ways.