Home
Resource
The betrayal of the East Asian Enlightenment
PDF
PDF format is widely accepted and good for printing.
Plug-in required
PDF-1(1.19 MB)
Citation & Export
View Usage Statistics
Staff View

Citation & Export
Hide

Simple citation

Hwang, Minhyuk. The betrayal of the East Asian Enlightenment. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-fkny-vy34

Export

Click here for information about Citation Management Tools at Rutgers.

Statistics
Hide

Description

TitleThe betrayal of the East Asian Enlightenment
NameHwang, Minhyuk (author); Bronner, Stephen Eric (chair); Bathory, Peter Dennis (internal member); Murphy, Andrew R. (internal member); Park, Myung-Lim (outside member); Rutgers University; School of Graduate Studies
Date Created2018
Other Date2018-10 (degree)
SubjectPolitical Science, Liberalism--Asia, Fukuzawa, Yukichi, 1835-1901
Extent1 online resource (192 pages) : illustrations
DescriptionThis study explores the intellectual tradition Fukuzawa Yukichi, a renowned Japanese political theorist of the nineteenth century, initiated. Fukuzawa was not only the proponent of liberalism whose Western ideas spread to East Asia, but also the most representative liberal of his time. His life and thought represented the general history of East Asian liberalism—its rise, frustration, and betrayal. Many scholars acknowledge Fukuzawa’s contribution in spreading liberalism and enlightenment in his early life and awakening the dormant masses in Asia to face the modern world. Fukuzawa, however, later betrayed transnational solidarity in Asia and encouraged imperialism in Japan, which naturally drew heavy criticism. Understandably, postmodernists regard Fukuzawa’s betrayal as a fundamental failure of Western modernity and, further, the problem inherent in the idea of enlightenment and “progress” as such. This study is an attempt to defend Fukuzawa’s project of East Asian enlightenment against the postmodern critique and find the universal significance of the tradition—not just in the Asian context. The impulse of imperialist expansion and totalitarianism came from the frustration of enlightenment rather than its continuation and extension. As this study will show, the frustration of the Enlightenment and liberalism was due to the liberals’ failure to maintain their own commitment to progress and universal rights.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Noteby Minhyuk Hwang
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
Persistent URLhttps://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-fkny-vy34
Languageeng
CollectionSchool of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
Version 8.5.5
Rutgers University Libraries - Copyright ©2024