BiblioVault - Books by Wang, G.

The Chinese Overseas

From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy

Wang Gungwu

Harvard University Press, 2000

The Chinese overseas now number 25 to 30 million, yet the 2,000-year history of Chinese attempts to venture abroad and the underlying values affecting that migration have never before been presented in a broad overview. Despite centuries of prohibition against leaving the land and traveling and settling overseas, the "earthbound" Chinese--first traders, then peasants and workers--eventually found new sources of livelihood abroad. The practice of sojourning, being always temporarily away from home, was the answer the Chinese overseas found to deal with imperial and orthodox concerns. Today their challenge is to find an alternative to either returning or assimilating by seeking a new kind of autonomy in a world that will come to acknowledge the ideal of multicultural states.

In pursuing this story, international scholar Wang Gungwu uncovers some major themes of global history: the coming together of Asian and European civilizations, the ambiguities of ethnicity and diasporic consciousness, and the tension between maintaining one's culture and assimilation.

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The Chinese Overseas

From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy

Wang Gungwu

Harvard University Press

Genetic Algorithms in Engineering Systems

A.M.S. Zalzala

The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 1997

This book comprises ten invited expert contributions on the theory and applications of genetic algorithms in a variety of engineering systems. In addition to addressing the simple formulation of GAs, the chapters include original material on the design of evolutionary algorithms for particular engineering applications. Chosen for their experience in the field, the authors are drawn from both academia and industry worldwide, and provide extensive insight into their respective fields. The volume is suitable for researchers and postgraduates who need to be up-to-date with developments in this important subject, as well as practitioners in industry who are eager to find out how to solve their particular real-life problems.

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In Search of Justice

The 1905-1906 Chinese Anti-American Boycott

Guanhua Wang

Harvard University Press, 2001

How could late Qing China, a country bound largely by parochial ties of family, clan, and native place, produce a nationwide mass movement? Was this popular outburst symptomatic of a domestic "nationalist awakening," as historians of modern China claim, or a result of pressure from Chinese overseas suffering under harsh U.S. immigration laws, as students of American history contend? In considering these vying explanations for the boycott of American products, Wang identifies a coalition of interests that came together to shape the movement's strategy, objectives, and outcome. He explores the larger structural and organizational resources available to boycott organizers and participants and the role of this common experience in laying the groundwork for later reform and revolutionary movements.

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Soundtracks of Asian America

Navigating Race through Musical Performance

Grace Wang

Duke University Press, 2015

In Soundtracks of Asian America, Grace Wang explores how Asian Americans use music to construct narratives of self, race, class, and belonging in national and transnational spaces. She highlights how they navigate racialization in different genres by considering the experiences of Asians and Asian Americans in Western classical music, U.S. popular music, and Mandopop (Mandarin-language popular music). Her study encompasses the perceptions and motivations of middle-class Chinese and Korean immigrant parents intensely involved in their children's classical music training, and of Asian and Asian American classical musicians whose prominence in their chosen profession is celebrated by some and undermined by others. Wang interviews young Asian American singer-songwriters who use YouTube to contest the limitations of a racialized U.S. media landscape, and she investigates the transnational modes of belonging forged by Asian American pop stars pursuing recording contracts and fame in East Asia. Foregrounding musical spaces where Asian Americans are particularly visible, Wang examines how race matters and operates in the practices and institutions of music making.

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