What is lost in translation may be a war, a world, a way of life. A
unique look into the nineteenth-century clash of empires from both
sides of the earthshaking encounter, this book reveals the connections
between international law, modern warfare, and comparative
grammar--and their influence on the shaping of the modern world in
Eastern and Western terms. The Clash of Empires brings to light the
cultural legacy of sovereign thinking that emerged in the course of
the violent meetings between the British Empire and the Qing Dynasty
(1644-1911). Lydia Liu demonstrates how the collision of imperial will
and competing interests, rather than the civilizational attributes of
existing nations and cultures, led to the invention of "China," "the
East," "the West," and the modern notion of "the world" in recent
history. Drawing on her archival research and comparative analyses of
English--and Chinese--language texts, as well as their respective
translations, she explores how the rhetoric of barbarity and
civilization, friend and enemy, and discourses on sovereign rights,
injury, and dignity were a central part of British imperial warfare.
Exposing the military and philological--and almost always
translingual--nature of the clash of empires, this book provides a
startlingly new interpretation of modern imperial history.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780674040298
Publisert
2021
Utgiver
Vendor
Harvard University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter