Revolution and Its Past : Routledge : 9781138742161 : 1138742163 : 23 Jul 2019 : Revolution and Its Past is a comprehensive study of China from the last quarter of the eighteenth century through to 2018. A fascinating and dramatic narrative, the book compels interest both as a history of an ancient civilization developing into a modern nation-state and as an account of how the Chinese as a people have struggled and continue to work to find their identity in the modern world. Beginning in the last two decades of the reign of the Qianlong emperor (1736?1795), the book provides a baseline that allows readers to understand China's rapid decline in the nineteenth and part of the twentieth century, and extends into the present day, a time when China has the second largest economy in the world and aims to become a leading global power by 2050. The vast changes that have swept over China between these times are probed through the lens of the broad and important theme of "identities." This fou