Customer Reviews

China's New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Oxford-University educated political philosopher Daniel Bell is-- as the reviewer above me mentioned-- one of the foremost authorities working on contemporary Chinese political philosophy today. He is also very uniquely situated as the first Western scholar to teach on a longterm basis in the department of philosophy at China's top university (Tsinghua University). In addition to Tsinghua, Bell has also taught at universities in Hong Kong and Singapore and is an extremely prolific writer-- writing for both an academic as well as a general audience. Perhaps of greatest significance to me is that he is trilingual and fluent in Chinese.

With his impressive background in mind, I was expecting a lot from his work-- and I was not disappointed.

I will echo that this particular book of Bell's would be of great interest to anyone wanting to read more about contemporary Chinese society or politics. However, what I have found most stimulating about his work is his ability-- and indeed his courage--to engage with the underlying philosophies that inform the issues. So often, when we read books about foreign-born philosophies (not just Confucianism, but Buddhist philosophy, daoism etc.) it seems that the authors feel compelled to present the philosophies only in such a way that maps on to our modern sensibilities. Of course, there is interest in seeing how, for example, Confucianism can be mapped on to American neo-liberal ideals, etc. That is fine. But, I think the lesser-traveled but more interesting and intellectually-stimulating route is to engage in the ideas (and their logical implications) as much as possible without filtering them through Western sensibilities. I mean, what in the end can we learn or take away from a Westernized view of Confucianism? I think this is precisely why Bell remains a somewhat controversial figure (online he remains my favorite cause célèbre on various China-related blogs!) precisely because he takes people out of their comfort zones (for example his chapter on karaoke).

The man thinks outside the box. And for that reason alone, I highly recommend this book (especially for readers who sincerely want to engage with ideas which might make them uncomfortable).

Along these lines-- and similar to Parag Khanna's work-- Bell presents alternative models for developing countries. And, I would recommend reading his ideas regarding contemporary Chinese politics with democratic India and the Philippines in mind (for example). Like the reviewer at the top, in one sense I also found the work Beijing-centric. On the other hand, though, I also found his book to be surprisingly relevant to Japanese contemporary sensibilities. Japan and Korea are often cited as the great Confucian societies today. I have lived in Japan myself for 20 years and Bell's book was surprisingly relevant to my experiences in Japan (I won't speak about Korea as I have not spent enough time there)--this was particularly so in his chapter "Hierarchical Rituals and Egalitarian Society," which I thought was the most interesting chapter in the entire book.

I highly recommend China's New Confucianism and hope Bell will turn his attention to Japan someday as well.

Recommended for anyone who wants to learn about society and politics in China. The author anticipated civility and Confucianism in the Olympics. If he's right about the revival of Confucianism in politics, the book will be seen as groundbreaking. If not, it is still an original and thought-provoking account of how Confucianism shapes social life in China. And it's a humane and progressive form of Confucianism: "left-Confucianism", as the author puts it. The chapter on sex, singing, and civility is both shocking and plausible. My one qualm is the book seems a bit too "Beijing-centric", the social and political scene may not look so "Confucian" outside the capital city.

Daniel A. Bell, of English or American background, is the author of this wonderful book on China. He puts into clear and easy to understand words the mind-set of china. Because he is a political physicology professor, he also puts into excellent detail the perspectives of the china mind-set. He has a strong understanding of the topic.

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This book has divided the reviewers. However since the five star reviews then to have reviewed only ONE book I would personally discount their view, but I leave it to you to decide for yourself.

There has been too many books written to capitalise on the American interest in China. It is now really hard to find the good books on modern China in all the clutter. This is one of those bad books that just adds to the clutter and destroys trees.

The title leads you to believe that this book will contain some deeper observations and thoughts. That is far from the truth. What you get is a bunch of disconnected essays. One is about ritual (but the author has never heard about Durkheim?), another is about sports, and on it goes. Maybe one or two essays are moderately interesting but not insightful, but most are just filler material. Somebody wrote that the author is a leading authority on China. That's a bad joke.

Princeton University Press is normally quite reliable. That's why I bought the book in the first place. Alas, not in this case.

The political science author must be a left-wing guy because he calls the Wall Street Journal libertarian. WSJ certainly is conservative, but libertarian? I don't think so. Personally, I don't like the WSJ, but facts should still be correct.

Bell has written a book that is utterly meaningless. I hope he doesn't force his students to buy it.

Finally, please don't mistake this Daniel Bell with the older scholar Daniel Bell.

This is an interesting read. Daniel Bell attempts to show how Confucianism remains influential in contemporary China. The book is divided into three parts: politics, society and education. Two short essays(one on Yu Dan's interpretation of the Analects, the other on Jiang Qing's political Confucianism)are offered as appendixes.

Through the lens of Confucianism, Daniel Bell successfully recasts China as a country that is quite different from the one portrayed by most journalists in the West. On this, Bell's account is refreshing. But this account remains unsatisfactory. At many points, Bell's China is not really China but rather Beijing. One advantage of this book is that Bell's views are often backed by his experiences in Beijing and therefore very easy to follow. From an academic point of view, however, this advantage is actually a significant disadvantage. Beijing, though the capital, is a regional cultural center at most. Other regional cultural centers include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing/Chengdu and Xi'an, etc. So it remains unclear to what extent Confucianism is influential in these other regions and therefore in China as a culturally diverse country. Bell's interpretation of Confucianism is interesting but lacks philosophical depth. My impression is that his interpretation is very well attuned to the immediate social and political reality in China. More often than not, he interprets certain Confucian texts (the Analects, the Mengzi and the Xunzi)to make sense of some practices in everyday life. This approach certainly enlivens the ancient texts but also runs the risk of eclipsing some other important features (like analogic reasoning and moral emotions)in Confucianism that are not directly related to but would ultimately shape social and political thoughts.

Full of witty remarks, this book is suitable for anyone who is interested in contemporary China.

I have read those one star reviews. I don't think this book is that bad. As a Chinese college student in America, I found this book quite helpful for correcting many American's stereotypes of China and her people. Even as a Chinese, I found this book interesting that the author merge his professional knowledge in western political philosophy with Confucian wisdom that he learned by teaching graduate students in China. Not bad

I've enjoyed Bell's occasional essay before, and expected to enjoy this book. Especially given his training in philosophy, I expected to learn about how Confucianism arose, how it was interpreted in the past, how Confucian ideas are evolving now - and what the effect of the Confucian revival in China is having. Instead, Bell spends little time in detailed discussion of Confucian ideas past, present and future. What we get instead is a series of his musings on how Confucianism should be put into practice.

I do have great sympathy for Bell's political stance - I share his general Canadian feel-good-lefty-leanings. But I really wanted to hear what other people (CHINESE people) think, philosophically and politically. If the content and approach of two appendices (on two well-known Confucian scholars/popularizers of Confucianism) had been extended to fill the whole book, I'd have been completely happy. They were the only thing that kept me from rating this book 2 stars.

In the end, I decided this book wasn't really written for a Western audience. It's not a descriptive book, it's prescriptive. And, I'm certainly tired of reading editorials by Westerners for Westerners about how the Chinese should behave and believe. I don't think Bell is trying to do that. I think he's written this book for Chinese people. Bell notes that in his political philosophy classes he's given up teaching about Confucian history, because his students get bored, since they know the material. He tries to engage them in comparing Confucian ideals with Western. This seems to be a good description of this book.

Likewise, he notes that the easiest way he has found to reach a wide Chinese audience with his writing (essays, opinion pieces), and without worrying about political censorship, is to get them published in the West. He notes his readership in the West for a particular article might be low, but millions will quickly get access to it in China through blogs and pirated copies. Probably, the philosophical musings on the fusion of Western liberal ideals with traditional Chinese values will be more interesting to someone trying to resolve these issues for themselves (a Chinese audience) than someone trying to learn about Chinese culture.

I might be reading too much into it, but a number of stylistic clues hinted that his tone was meant to be placating to a Chinese readership as well. Which is fine, but not what I wanted.

After struggling through 20 pages, I called Amazon to get my money back. Nothing wrong with the content but the typing was horrible. Whoever contracted to put this on the web for the publisher should be fired. How can I enjoy a kindle eBook when, for example, the two legs of capital H are always separated by three spaces, words are hyphenated in mid-line with lots of empty space, when Capital L appears as capital I. Bush League.

If you must have this book, buy the hard copy

I usually don't write reviews on Amazon but found this book so incredibly bad that it compelled me to write my first one. I found it surprising that Princeton would publish a book of such low quality. As another reviewer stated the book the book is more a collection of very loosely connected essays. The author offers a very limited point of view and almost no critical investigation into Chinese politics or culture. Mostly just a collection of the authors shallow and biased observations on China with no evidence offered to support any of his opinions. Don't waste your time.