000			02161 a2200205 4500
003			JGU
005			20230207154533.0
008			230207b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780691229614 _qebook
040			_beng _cJGU
041			_aeng
100			_a Bartsch, Shadi, _91638323 _eautor
245			_aPlato Goes to China / _bThe Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism _cShadi Bartsch
260			_b Princeton University Press, _c2023. _aNew York,
520			_a"As improbable as it may sound, an illuminating way to understand today’s China and how it views the West is to look at the astonishing ways Chinese intellectuals are interpreting―or is it misinterpreting?―the Greek classics. In Plato Goes to China, Shadi Bartsch offers a provocative look at Chinese politics and ideology by exploring Chinese readings of Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, and other ancient writers. She shows how Chinese thinkers have dramatically recast the Greek classics to support China’s political agenda, diagnose the ills of the West, and assert the superiority of China’s own Confucian classical tradition. In a lively account that ranges from the Jesuits to Xi Jinping, Bartsch traces how the fortunes of the Greek classics have changed in China since the seventeenth century. Before the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the Chinese typically read Greek philosophy and political theory in order to promote democratic reform or discover the secrets of the success of Western democracy and science. No longer. Today, many Chinese intellectuals use these texts to critique concepts such as democracy, citizenship, and rationality. Plato’s “Noble Lie,” in which citizens are kept in their castes through deception, is lauded; Aristotle’s Politics is seen as civic brainwashing; and Thucydides’s criticism of Athenian democracy is applied to modern America. What do antiquity’s “dead white men” have left to teach? By uncovering the unusual ways Chinese thinkers are answering that question, Plato Goes to China opens a surprising new window on China today...."
650			_aphilosophy
999			_c3053404 _d3053404