Postscript: On Ambivalent Individualities

Abstract

From the start of the Opium Wars at the mid-point of the nineteenth century, through the period of the Self-Strengthening Movement and the upheaval that followed the Boxer uprising, the process of Chinese modernization had been underway for more than 60 years by the time we reach the starting point of this book. The period between 1919 and 1937, which has been the focus of these pages, was the time when Chinese modernization finally came to be experienced in a more mature form, revealing itself widely in many different facets across society, and affecting large numbers of people in their daily lives. Where in the period before 1900, the locus of modernization was firmly in the military and diplomatic sphere, together with a few other, rather pragmatic elements, the shift in scale and breadth as China moved into the twentieth century was dramatic, particularly after the May Fourth Movement.