ABSTRACT

The goal of this project is to locate the origins and development of modern thought in the United States and East Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. While a strong literature on post-war modernization exists, there is a gap in the pre-war origins and development of modern ideas. This book re-evaluates the influence of the United States on East Asia in the twentieth century and gives greater voice to East Asians in the construction of their own ideas of modernity.

chapter |18 pages

Introduction

Historical writing and the limits of westernization

chapter 1|34 pages

Modernity in East Asia

Early pioneers, 1860–1920

chapter 5|54 pages

Modernity in crisis, 1930s–1940s

chapter 6|37 pages

The postwar transformation

chapter |3 pages

Afterword