Symptoms of an Unruly Age

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Symptoms of an Unruly Age is written by Rivi Handler-Spitz and published by University of Washington Press. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 029574197X (ISBN 10) and 9780295741970 (ISBN 13).

Symptoms of an Unruly Age compares the writings of Li Zhi (1527–1602) and his late-Ming compatriots to texts composed by their European contemporaries, including Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Cervantes. Emphasizing aesthetic patterns that transcend national boundaries, Rivi Handler-Spitz explores these works as culturally distinct responses to similar social and economic tensions affecting early modern cultures on both ends of Eurasia. The paradoxes, ironies, and self-contradictions that pervade these works are symptomatic of the hypocrisy, social posturing, and counterfeiting that afflicted both Chinese and European societies at the turn of the seventeenth century. Symptoms of an Unruly Age shows us that these texts, produced thousands of miles away from one another, each constitute cultural manifestations of early modernity. The open access publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.