Although we may be aware that China and Japan were not nation-states until relatively recently, we still speak and write about Han dynasty China or Jomon Japan. And almost all historians refer to prehistoric China or Japan. Thus imposing the national story on the local, the authors contend, harms the historical record.

Introduction: The Teleology of the Nation-State
PART ONE. THE EMERGENCE OF A "JAPAN" AND A "CHINA"
1. The Emergence of Aesthetic Japan: Art Networks and Popular Publishing in the Formation of Proto-Modern Identity
—Eiko Ikegami
2. The North(west)ern Peoples and the Recurrent Origins of the "Chinese" State
—Victor Mair
PART TWO. BRINGING THE STATE IN
3. State-Making in Global Context: Japan in a World of Nation-States
—Mark Ravina
4. When Did China Become China? Thoughts on the Twentieth Century
—William C. Kirby
PART THREE. NATION AND NATIONALITY
5. Civilization and Enlightenment: Markers of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Japan
—David L. Howell
6. Nationality and Difference in China: The Post-Imperial Dilemma
—Pamela Kyle Crossley
PART FOUR. LOCALE, NATION, EMPIRE
7. Cultivating Nonnational Historical Understandings in Local History
—Luke S. Roberts
8. Where Do Incorrect Political Ideas Come From? Writing the History of the Qing Empire and the Chinese Nation
—Peter C. Perdue
Notes
Index
Contributors
Acknowledgments