The Emergence of Civilizational Consciousness in Early China: History Word by Word [Hardcover]

Introduction 1. The Coining of Civilizational Consciousness in Modern Western Europe 2. From Awe-Inspiringly Beautiful to Morally Refined The Coining of Civility in Pre-Q?n China 3. Coiners and Critics of Civility/Civilization (W?n) 4. Inventing the Barbarian: From Belligerent Others to Civilizationally Inferior Others 5. Ethnographic Vocabulary of Civilizational Otherness: The Elegant Rites of the Great Ones Versus the Vulgar Customs of the Barbarians Conclusion

This book provides a conceptual history of the emergence of civilizational consciousness in early China. Focusing on how words are used in pre-Q?n (before 221 BCE) texts to construct identities and negotiate relationships between a 'civilised self' and 'uncivilised others', it provides a re-examination of the origins and development of these ideas.

By adopting a novel approach to determining when civilizational consciousness emerged in pre-Q?n China, this book analyzes this question in ways that establish a fresh hermeneutical dialogue between Chinese and modern European understandings of 'civilization.' Whereas previous studies have used archaeological data to place its origin somewhere between 3000 BCE and 1000 BCE, this book explores changes in word meanings in texts from the pre-Q?n period to reject this view. Instead, this book dates the emergence of civilizational consciousness in China to around 2,500 years ago. In the process, new chronologies of the coining of Old Chinese terms such as customs, barbarians, and the Great ones, are proposed, which challenge anachronistic assumptions about these terms in earlier studies.

Examining important Chinese classics, such as the Analects, the Mencius and the M?zi, as well as key historical periods and figures in the contex