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book1958

The Soul of China

Disciplines:
history
china
civilization
history/de riencourt

Summary

Amaury de Riencourt's 1958 interpretation of Chinese civilization — applying civilizational cycle theory to China's history and arguing that China has moved through recurring cycles of feudalism, unification, decline, and renewal, with a distinctive Chinese cultural genius that has survived every disruption.

Core Contribution

Provides a Spenglerian-style civilizational analysis of China — treating Chinese history as expressing a distinctive cultural soul that gives it coherent identity across millennia of political disruption.

Historical Influences

Amaury de Riencourt

Intellectual Lineage

Amaury de Riencourt Coward-McCann

Allied Works

A History of Chinese Civilization Our Oriental Heritage

Contemporaries & Peers

A History of Chinese Civilization

Minds Influenced

Civilizational analysis of ChinaHistory 102

Intellectual Posterity

Soul of China

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