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Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary China: The Search for National Identity under Reform. By Guo Yingjie. [London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. 208 pp. ISBN 0-415-32264-2.]

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2004

Extract

Focused on the politics of cultural identity in contemporary China, Yingjie Guo's monograph is a detailed study of a major recent phenomenon, which he names “cultural nationalism.” The “cultural nationalists” whom he identifies are from diverse intellectual backgrounds and have different ideological orientations. However, as Guo tells us, they all share a common goal: “to substantiate and crystallize the idea of the ethnic nation in the minds of the members of the community by creating a wide-spread awareness of the myths, history, and linguistic tradition of the community” (p. 5). According to Guo, cultural nationalism is “a reaction against the May Fourth iconoclasm, together with its discourse of Enlightenment scientific rationality and the CCP's Marxist ideology” (p. 23).

Type
Book Reviews
Copyright
© The China Quarterly, 2004

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