{"product_id":"land-of-strangers-9780231197557","title":"Land of Strangers","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEric Schluessel explores the late nineteenth-century encounter between Chinese power and a Muslim society through the struggles of ordinary people in the oasis of Turpan. He traces the emergence of new struggles around essential questions of identity, recasting the attempted transformation of Xinjiang as a distinctly Chinese form of colonialism.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn expert collector, reader, and translator of difficult materials, Schluessel provides us with a window into frontier society in the late nineteenth century. \u003ci\u003eLand of Strangers\u003c\/i\u003e is an exceptionally well-researched work grounded in a stunning assortment of primary sources, replete with memorable close-up encounters with an engaging cast of characters. -- Tobie Meyer-Fong, author of \u003ci\u003eWhat Remains: Coming to Terms with Civil War in Nineteenth-Century China\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEric Schluessel combines prodigious linguistic skills with exhaustive archival research and conceptual sophistication to bring the Turpan oasis to life in all its human complexity. \u003ci\u003eLand of Strangers\u003c\/i\u003e is a fine-grained account of history from below, unlike anything we have on any part of Central Asia. A stellar achievement. -- Adeeb Khalid, author of \u003ci\u003eMaking Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough this theoretically rich exploration of Qing philosophy and practice of colonial rule, we see how violence and forced intimacy shape enduring group identities in Xinjiang. Using his multilingual skills to draw on diaries, memorials, and documents from court cases, Schluessel uncovers the interactions of everyday life among colonizing Chinese, intermediaries, and colonized Uyghurs in late Qing Xinjiang. -- Marianne Kamp, author of \u003ci\u003eThe New Woman in Uzbekistan: Islam, Modernity, and Unveiling Under Communism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this fine monograph, Eric Schluessel describes the local articulation and hardening of boundaries between people in late Qing Xinjiang.  Using Turkic, Manchu, and Chinese sources on Turpan, he introduces (among others) local elites, Hunanese Confucian statecraft ideologues, mediatory \u003ci\u003etongchi\u003c\/i\u003e interpreters, and Chinese-speaking Muslim brokers.  His narratives describe culture clashes, identity negotiation, gender ideologies, colonial discipline, and naming practices, persuasively and subtly connected to today’s troubled conditions. -- Jonathan N. Lipman, author of \u003ci\u003eFamiliar Strangers:  A History of Muslims in Northwest China\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA valuable contribution to our understanding of the actions of the modern Chinese state to pacify Xinjiang through this same combination of force and cultural transformation first attempted by the Xiang Army one hundred and fifty years ago. * Asian Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eHe uncovers many fascinating stories about the people who mediated the relationship between rulers and ruled, concluding with a nuanced discussion of comparative colonialism...Highly recommended. * Choice *\u003cbr\u003eWriting a 'history from below' of any society in any historical period is no easy task, but \u003ci\u003eLand of Strangers\u003c\/i\u003e has offered an outstanding example of such history and has provided illuminating insights into this method of exploring modern China and \u003cbr\u003eEurasia. -- Yuanchong Wang, University of Delaware * American Historical Review *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003eA Note on Conventions\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e1. The Chinese Law: The Origins of the Civilizing Project\u003cbr\u003e2. Xinjiang as Exception: The Transformation of the Civilizing Project\u003cbr\u003e3. Frontier Mediation: The Rise of the Interpreters\u003cbr\u003e4. Bad Women and Lost Children: The Sexual Economy of Confucian Colonialism\u003cbr\u003e5. Recollecting Bones: The Muslim Uprisings as Historical Trauma\u003cbr\u003e6. Historical Estrangement and the End of Empire\u003cbr\u003eConclusion\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eBibliography\u003cbr\u003eIndex","brand":"Columbia University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48864261538135,"sku":"9780231197557","price":27.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780231197557.jpg?v=1722271125","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/land-of-strangers-9780231197557","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}