Statesman or warlord? Yuan Shikai (1859-1916) has been both hailed as China's George Washington for his role in the country's transition from empire to republic and condemned as a counter-revolutionary. In any list of significant modern Chinese figures, he stands in the first rank. Yet Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal sheds new light on the controversial history of this talented administrator, fearsome general, and enthusiastic modernizer. Due to his death during the civil war his actions provoked, much Chinese historiography portrays Yuan as a traitor, a usurper, and a villain. After toppling the last emperor of China, Yuan endeavoured to build dictatorial power and establish his own dynasty while serving as the first president of the new republic, eventually going so far as to declare himself emperor. Drawing on previously untapped primary sources and recent scholarship, Patrick Fuliang Shan offers a lucid, comprehensive, and critical new interpretation of Yuan's part in shaping modern China.

This first major comprehensive study of Yuan Shikai in more than half a century explores the controversial life of one of the most important figures in China's transition from empire to republic.

About the Author
Patrick Fuliang Shan is a professor of history at Grand Valley State University, where he teaches Chinese history, East Asian history, and world history. He was president of the Chinese Historians in the United States from 2009 to 2011, a board member of the Historical Society for Twentieth-Century China from 2010 to 2014, and the coordinator of the East Asian Studies Program at Grand Valley State University from 2013 to 2016.

Reviews

Shan provide readers with a powerful and mostly convincing reappraisal of Yuan based on both primary sources with due attention to traditional and revisionist scholarship. It will surely be a significant addition to the study of Yuan Shikai as well as modern China in the years to come.

-- Qiang Fang, professor of East Asian History, University of Minnesota Duluth * China Review International, Vol. 24, No. 2 *
Shan's excellent biography-the first in English since 1961-challenges us to think critically about our preconceptions, and the way in which prevailing historical narratives emerge, rejecting those appealing but ultimately unhelpful binary characterizations which too often blight the telling of China's recent past. -- Jonathan Chatwin, author of Long Peace Street: A walk in modern China * the Asian Review of Books *



Book Information
ISBN 9780774837781
Author Patrick Fuliang Shan
Format Hardback
Page Count 332
Imprint University of British Columbia Press
Publisher University of British Columbia Press
Weight(grams) 640g