Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past

Since its first publication, Paul A. Cohen's Discovering History in China has occupied a singular place in American China scholarship. Translated into three East Asian languages, the volume has become essential to the study of China from the early nineteenth century to today.

Cohen critiques the work of leading postwar scholars and is especially adamant about not reading China through the lens of Western history. To this end, he uncovers the strong ethnocentric bias pervading the three majo...