Original Proposal

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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Original Proposal

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From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The Approximately 150 Recipients of Our Weekly E-mail
Subject: RSVP’s Requested -- “American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power and the End of History” -- March 14
Date: Sat, Feb 10, 2018
Attachments:
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Dear Friends,

Our next meeting is Wednesday evening, March 14th, at the Salt Lake Public Library (210 East 400 South).

In accordance with our quorum-revision policy of 6/12/2013, instead of waiting until the last week before each monthly meeting to request RSVP’s and canceling if we do not have our minimum quorum of six, RSVP’s are requested in our first-of-the-monthly-cycle weekly e-mail.

Those who have RSVP’d will be informed immediately when we reach six so that they can proceed to read the materials with assurance that a discussion will take place.

If there are not six RSVP’s by 11:59 pm next Friday, then next week’s weekly e-mail will announce that the 3/14/2018 meeting is cancelled.

Non-SLCounty residents (and residents who are out of town) are invited to participate in our meeting via Skype. If you would like to do so, please press your reply button and type “request participation via Skype” and we will contact you to make appropriate arrangements.


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OUR FOCUS BOOK FOR MARCH 14TH --

“American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power and the End of History” by Prof. Salvatore Balbones [Policy Press 9/15/2017 – 69 pages sans References & Index].

Amazon.com -- $54.24 hardcover + shipping or $12.00 Kindle
Salt Lake Public Library – no copies.
Salt Lake County Library – no copies.

However, Yours Truly has extra copies that he can loan to you.


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DEFINITION OF “TIANXIA” AND “AMERICAN TIANXIA”

“Tianxia” is a Chinese term for an ancient Chinese cultural concept that denoted either the entire geographical world or the metaphysical realm of mortals, and later became associated with political sovereignty. In ancient China, tianxia denoted the lands, space, and area divinely appointed to the Emperor by universal and well-defined principles of order. The center of this land was directly apportioned to the Imperial court, forming the center of a world view that centered on the Imperial court and went concentrically outward to major and minor officials and then the common citizens, tributary states, and finally ending with the fringe "barbarians".

“American Tianxia” is a term coined by the historian Wang Gungwu in 2013 to refer to the contemporary global order centered on the United States. It was further developed by sociologist Salvatore Babones to analyze today's millennial world-system through the lens of the Chinese concept of tianxia, or "all under heaven." While the United States is often called an "empire," this is a historically loaded term that is associated with perceptions of American imperialism. The concept of tianxia has a different set of meanings attached to it that Wang suggests and Babones argues are closer to what the United States actually displays in its contemporary approach to foreign affairs.


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AUTHOR BIO

Salvatore Babones --

Sociology Prof. at the Univ. of Sydney (Australia) since 2008. An American who received his PhD from Johns Hopkins, in 2015 he was simultaneously a visiting Prof. at Nanyang Technological U. in Singapore and a Visiting Scholar at Academia Sinica in Taipei.

He is the author or editor of 10 books and more than two dozen academic research articles. His research covers the macro-level structure of the global economy with a particular focus on China’s global economic integration.

He is a member of the “China Brain Trust of Foreign Affairs (the pre-eminent foreign policy magazine). He writes a monthly column on China and is a frequent contributor to various publications.


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AMAZON DESCRIPTION

After a meteoric rise, China’s once inexorable growth has come to a screeching halt, ending the Chinese dream of establishing a new tianxia (“harmonious order”) in Asia with China at its center. In this book, Salvatore Babones provides an up-to-date assessment of China’s economic problems and how they are undermining China’s challenge to a Western-dominated world. As China’s neighbors and many of its own most talented people look to the United States to ensure their security and prosperity, global power is slowly but surely consolidating in a twenty-first-century American tianxia. A closely argued antidote to defeatist accounts of Western decline, American Tianxia explores how liberal individualism has become the leitmotif of an emerging order in which people of all nationalities seek a share in the economic, cultural, and political system that is America writ large.


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REVIEW EXCERPTS

''Strikes at the heart of the rise of China argument: that China will replace the United States as the world’s most influential power. Insightful and intellectually sound... an excellent contribution to our understanding of the limits to China s rise as a global power and America’s enduring centrality to the world order.”
--Elizabeth Freund Larus, University of Mary Washington

''This is a book that everyone interested in the future of world politics cannot afford to ignore. It argues two important positions: that the USA domination of the world is the most robust and sustainable that can exist; and that China's bid to replace the USA must of necessity fall away. This may seem an unlikely scenario but read American Tianxia before adjusting your prejudices.''
--David Goodman, Professor of China Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

''Dismisses the dead end road of hegemonic cycle theories and opens a fresh, sound and convincing analytic frame for the present and future world-system.''
--Prof. Dr. Volker Bornschier, University of Zurich, Switzerland


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We hope to see all of you on March 14th.

Your friend,

John K.

PS -- To un-subscribe, please press "reply" and type "deletion requested."

NB: Please do NOT block our e-mail because you are too embarrassed to request a deletion -- 10 of our approximately 150 regular e-mail recipients use Comcast.net which has an algorithm blocking all e-mails from a website for which a certain percentage of recipients have requested blockage AND 3 of our regular meeting attendees who use Comcast.net now can NOT receive our weekly e-mails.

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