Abstract
Autore:
Iannini G., Bordone S.
Titolo:
"La Cina verso la modernità: considerazioni a proposito di un recente volume"
The miscellaneous book: AA.VV., Verso la modernità (a cura di Guido Samarani e Maurizio Scarpari), Vol. III de La Cina (a cura di Maurizio Scarpari), Torino, Giulio Einaudi editore may be considered an essential landmark for all those are interested in understanding China by a comprehensive approach. The authors range over all relevant domains (economic, social, institutional, historical, literature and arts) which help the readers to settle the complex puzzle of Chinese society. The equilibrium between modernization and continuity, present in all meaningful stages of contemporary history of the country, is the common factor joining all contributions. In particular the last stage (“the four modernizations” period) is emblematic. In fact, if the transition of its economy from communism to market economy was momentous, however it was managed progressively and empirically. The same dialectic affects also all the previous two-century history. Sociological analysis of this period highlights a process of dialectic interaction between tradition and modernization which was abruptly interrupted by Mao’s revolution. A process which, since the last imperial period, was encouraged by foreign institutions operating in the country and by missionary presence. Indeed the influence of western countries (1842-II world war) was ambiguous: if, on the one hand, it contaminated the cultural environment, legislation, commercial practice and industry, civil institutions and scientific thought, on the other it prevented China to overtake political fragmentation and to achieve a modern national consciousness. This wave of modernization, implemented in republican era (1911-1949), unfortunately failed because the internal rivalry and conflicts, the diffusion of banditry and poor farmers’ revolts and, above all, the Japanese invasion. According to this view the establishment of communism was not an event imposed by a narrow group of resolute revolutionaries but an inevitable choice of hungry and exhausted masses. Also the communism period as well the subsequent “modernization” period was not a linear process. The contrast between “pragmatists” and “purists”, which flowed into the dramatic episode of “cultural revolution”, also marked the “modernization” era with its brutal epilogue of Tian’anmen Square, obviously within a different ideological scenario. Extremely interesting and not less relevant are those interventions which, treating linguistic issues, literature, figurative arts, films-making, provide us a map of Knowledge useful to penetrate the sense of actual China and to understand its social system.
