Angaben zum Inhalt: How often do we think of cultural humiliation and failure as strengths? Against prevailing views on what it means to enjoy power as individuals, cultures, or nations, this provocative book looks at the making of cultural and national identities in modern China as building success on failure. It reveals the exercise of sovereign power where we least expect it and shows how this is crucial to our understanding of a modern world of conflict, violence, passionate suffering, and cultural difference
Includes bibliographical references (p. [289]-322) and index
Inhalt: 1. Failure and identity -- 2. The yellow race -- 3. The menace of race -- 4. Loving the nation, preserving the race -- 5. The quest for beauty and notions of femininity -- 6. Community of expiation: confessions, masochism, and masculinity -- 7. Kumen, cultural suffering -- Conclusion: The emergence of culture in failure -- Notes -- Character list -- Bibliography -- Index
