'Global China: New Approaches' consists of four articles that explore the methodological contours between transnational history and China studies. China historians have not been invulnerable to the excitements of transnational history. Few would be happy to be suspected of still believing in a unique and enduring Chinese essence, and fewer still would be willing to argue that the foreign has been irrelevant in China, not just for the last two centuries but for its entire history. The urge to break free from histories shackled to the nation-state (whether told as revolution or not), the desire to be alert to connections with other areas of the world, and the wish to escape from teleological narratives characterize much of the most arresting work done on China in recent years. China-centredness has not disappeared, but it certainly has attenuated.
