Description: Xu Guoqi navigates the fraught terrain of Chinese identity, arguing that the idea of China has always been constructed and reconstructed in concert with the broader world. China is fundamentally constituted by a shared history, and in this way is like all nations: not a stable object but rather a never-ending process of transnational mythmaking.
Brief description: Xu Guoqi is David H. Y. Chang Professor of History and founding director of the Institute of Transnational History of China at the University of Hong Kong. He has written many books, including Asia and the Great War, Chinese and Americans, Strangers on the Western Front, China and the Great War, and Olympic Dreams.
Review Quotes: Very few historians, if any, come close to the insights Xu Guoqi has on China. As in all of his work, Xu stands out here by looking at China's development through a transnational prism. The Idea of China showcases Xu's superb knowledge of Chinese history and the debates that surround it.--Odd Arne Westad, coauthor of The Great Transformation: China's Road from Revolution to Reform