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    Edward Saidian Perspective of The Chan's Great Continent by Jonathan D. Spence

    Number of Pages: 5

     

    Summary of the research paper:

    In five pages this text is considered from the perspective of Edward Said in hopes of encouraging greater understanding between the exaggerated historical representations by the West and the actual history of China. Four sources are cited in the bibliography.

    Name of Research Paper File: LM1_TLCchan.rtf

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    Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
    And so sets the mood of Jonathan D. Spences The Chans Great Continent, China in Western Minds, a compilation of historical works that reflect the Western - if not skewed  - perspective of Chinas cultural, political and social existence. Composed of an Edward Saidian viewpoint, the student will want to note that Spences book encompasses the fundamental basis upon  which Saids entire argument is founded; indeed, there is no question that while delivered in an entertaining fashion, The Chans Great Continent, China in Western Minds is rife with Saidian  implications of Orientalism that help the reader better understand the different between true Chinese history and Western exaggeration. "If much of Polos account was thus designed as a mixture  of self-promotion and oblique criticism of Western meanness as contrasted with Eastern opulence and openness, then other aspects of his description may have had similar polemical or moralistic intent.  His book might have been designed in part as a commentary on his own native city, as much as an accurate representation of life in China" (Spence PG). Orientalism  represents a form of prejudice that has existed since the time of Marco Polo, a traveler who brought back with him the supposedly authentic reports of Chinese culture. As  it turns out, however, Polos accounts are marred with self-aggrandizing elements that clearly serve to either falsify or severely embellish upon the information found in his chronicles, a point that  stands to discredit the uniqueness attributable to Chinese culture in exchange for the Western interpretation of how China appears to be. Properly defined, Orientalism represents "a manner of regularized  (or Orientalized) writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient" (Orientalism #2). Western civilization has long looked upon other cultures as being 

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