nicoleFor anyone who believes that the West held exclusive monopoly over ‘modernity,’ Professor Alexander Woodside’s 2006 book Lost Modernities should be mandatory reading.

Woodside seeks to illuminate the modern characteristics of the “pre-modern” East. His book analyzes China, Korea, and Vietnam’s early, post-feudal bureaucracies and their transparent, meritocratic civil service examinations and social welfare systems, in existence between 618-1910 CE. In so doing, the book thoughtfully exposes the exaggerated differences between our visions of “traditional” and “modern” societies. It resoundingly calls for more scholars to study Asia if we wish to understand fully the modern world, and argues that industrialization and capitalism are not the only markers of modernity.

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