DENG XIAOPING AS PAST AND PROLOGUE

LIKE RULERS AND STATESMEN BEFORE HIM, HE GRAFTED WESTERN IDEAS ONTO CHINESE CULTURE

Recurring in time across China's history has been the story of the rise and decline of successive dynasties. Since the 1900s, Chinese historians have strenuously attacked this traditional way of looking at history as violating any claims in China to development and progress. They feel that such an idea lies behind the concept of "an unchanging China," which has been so damaging to foreign assessments of China's development. Such historians have looked for the deeper rhythms of economic growth and change, territorial expansion, developments in the arts, and environmental factors as examples of what we should be studying instead. Nonetheless dynasties...

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