Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China / Edition 1

by Thomas Mullaney, Benedict Anderson

Overview

China is a vast nation comprised of hundreds of distinct ethnic communities, each with its own language, history, and culture. Today the government of China recognizes just 56 ethnic nationalities, or minzu, as groups entitled to representation. This controversial new book recounts the history of the most sweeping attempt to sort and categorize the nation's enormous population: the 1954 Ethnic Classification project (minzu shibie). Thomas S. Mullaney draws on recently declassified material and extensive oral histories to describe how the communist government, in power less than a decade, launched this process in ethnically diverse Yunnan. Mullaney shows how the government drew on Republican-era scholarship for conceptual and methodological inspiration as it developed a strategy for identifying minzu and how non-Party-member Chinese ethnologists produced a “scientific” survey that would become the basis for a policy on nationalities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520272743
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	11/04/2010
Series:	Asia: Local Studies / Global Themes , #18
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	1,073,770
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Thomas S. Mullaney is Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Foreword
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Identity Crisis in Postimperial China
2. Ethnicity as Language
3. Plausible Communities
4. The Consent of the Categorized
5. Counting to Fifty-Six

Conclusion: A History of the Future

Appendix A: Ethnotaxonomy of Yunnan, 1951, According to the Yunnan Nationalities Affairs Commission
Appendix B: Ethnotaxonomy of Yunnan, 1953, According to the Yunnan Nationalities Affairs Commission
Appendix C: Minzu Entries, 1953–1954 Census, by Population
Appendix D: Classification Squads, Phases One and Two
Appendix E: Population Sizes of Groups Researched during Phase One and Phase Two

Notes
Character Glossary
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This rich, nuanced and erudite book is a great accomplishment."—The China Journal

"A very important contribution to our understanding of the birth of the modern Chinese nation."—Journal of World History

Editorial Reviews

Brief but elegantly argued. . . . Mullaney makes brilliant sense of mountains of data.

Hist Stds In The Natural Sciences - Ruth Rogaski

An exemplary piece of scholarship. . . . Tackles broad historiographical questions with a manageable and concrete set of new data.

British Jrnl For The History Of Science - Howard Chiang

A very important contribution to our understanding of the birth of the modern Chinese nation.

Journal Of World History - Jeff Kyong-McClain

"This rich, nuanced and erudite book is a great accomplishment."--The China Journal

"A very important contribution to our understanding of the birth of the modern Chinese nation."--Journal of World History

"An exemplary piece of scholarship. . . . Tackles broad historiographical questions with a manageable and concrete set of new data."--British Jrnl For the History of Science

"Brief but elegantly argued. . . . Mullaney makes brilliant sense of mountains of data."--Hist Stds In the Natural Sciences

From the Publisher

This rich, nuanced and erudite book is a great accomplishment.

The China Journal - Elena Barabantseva University of Manchester

"Through an examination of ethno-taxonomic discourse and practice, this book gives us a thorough understanding of how the People’s Republic of China came to have 56 nationalities. The author’s scholarly stance is thought-provoking."

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

"Mullaney's excellent book teaches us a great deal about the genesis of multiethnic China..."

Pacific Affairs - Sara A. Newland