John King Fairbank
China: A New History
Harvard University Press
"...... Once the modern revolution in Chinese thought got
under way in the 1890s, it became evident that no foreign model
could fit the Chinese situation, that many models would be used
but none would be adequate, and that the creative Chinese people
would have to work out their salvation in their own way.
Having had a unique past, they would have their own unique
future.
This conclusion, unsettling to many, has now coincided
with a further worldwide realization that the species Homo
sapiens sapiens (as it has reassuringly itself) is itself
endangered. The twentieth century has already seen more
man-made suffering, death, and assault on the environment than all
previous centuries combined. Perhaps the Chinese have
finally joined the great outside world just in time to participate
in its collapse. A few observers, less pessimistic, believe
that in the end only a survival capacity like that exhibited by
the Chinese for three millennia can save us. By taking a fresh,
newly informed look at China's long history, at its
multichanneled reforms, rebellions, and revolutions and its
record of admirable successes and grievous failures in the
modern century, we may find the long-term trends and
contemporary conditions that will shape China's future and
affect our own.
Dated September 12, 1991
|
|