Contents

Introduction

PART I
China – Zhongguo – An Empire at the Centre of the World

  1 A Distant King is Turned Away

  2 A Distant Pope is Expelled

  3 An Emperor’s Legacy is Erased

PART II
A Civilization in Free Fall

  4 The Breach and the Thief

  5 The British Intervention: Trauma 1

  6 The Taiping Rebellion

  7 The British-French Intervention: Trauma 2

  8 The Russian Intervention: Trauma 3

  9 The French Intervention: Trauma 4

10 The Japanese Intervention: Trauma 5

11 The German Intervention: Trauma 6

12 The Boxer Protocol: Trauma 7

13 The Custodian Banks: Trauma 8

14 The Japanese Invasion: Trauma 9

PART III
A Clash of Cultures?

15 How Would You Have Reacted?

16 The Tradition of Existential Autonomy

17 Europe and the Discovery of Social Welfare

18 China Takes Its Fate Into Its Own Hands

19 First Steps to a New Beginning

20 Science and Medicine

21 How Much Westernization?

22 Marxism in China

23 The Path to the Present

Conclusion

References

Index