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In eighteenth-century China, a remarkable intellectual transformation took place, centered on the ascendance of philology. In China's Philological Turn, Ori Sela foregrounds the polymath Qian Daxin to reconstruct the history of eighteenth-century Chinese learning and its long-lasting consequences

In eighteenth-century China, a remarkable intellectual transformation took place, centered on the ascendance of philology. Its practitioners were preoccupied with the reliability of sources as evidence for restoring ancient texts and meanings and with the centrality of facts and truth to their scholarship and identity. With the power to construct the textual past, philology has the potential to shape both individual and collective identities, and its rise to prominence consequently deeply affected contemporaneous political, social, and cultural agendas.Ori Sela foregrounds the polymath Qian Daxin (1728–1804), one of the most distinguished scholars of the Qing dynasty, to tell this story. China's Philological Turn traces scholars' social networks and the production of knowledge, considering the texts they studied along with their reading practices and the assumptions about knowledge, facts, and truth that came with them. The book considers fundamental issues of eighteenth-century intellectual life: the tension between antiquity's elevated status and the question of what antiquity actually was; the status of scientific knowledge, especially astronomy, mathematics, and calendrical studies; and the relationship between learned debates and cultural anxieties, especially scholars' self-characterization and collective identity. Sela brings to light manuscripts, biographies, letters, handwritten notes, epitaphs, and more to highlight the creativity and openness of his subjects. A pioneering book in the cultural history of intellectuals across disciplinary boundaries, China's Philological Turn reconstructs the history of eighteenth-century Chinese learning and its long-lasting consequences.

AbstractThis article examines the value of the 'Cold War' analogy – which has become a commonly used shorthand to describe the Sino–American rivalry – for understanding the effects of the current great power competition in the Middle East. Instead of thinking in terms of the zero‐sum logic of the Cold War, we are using the Cold War history in the Middle East as a heuristic device to sharpen our understanding of today's dilemmas. In other words, we are arguing for the benefits of thinkingwiththe analogy rather than adopting it as a kind of conceptual framework for decision‐making. Thinking with the analogy can help us identifyhowandwhythe Sino–American rivalry is shaping the Middle East's political and security context. After examining the merits of the analogy, we propose three 'lessons' from the Cold War history that can help us comprehend the potential effects of the Middle East on the Sino–American rivalry: Middle East actors can intensify the great power rivalry; Middle East conflicts may force reluctant regional actors to choose a side in the great power rivalry; and, lastly, Middle East energy resources flow in line with the producers' interests, not just the great powers' interests.

Presenting a host of in-depth case studies, Time and Language: New Sinology and Chinese History argues for and demonstrates the significance of New Sinology by restoring the role of language/philology in the research and understanding of how modern China emerged