When you stream the latest hit series, you're doing more than just being entertained -- you're stepping onto a 21st-century battlefield.

In Narrative Empires, K. A. Zhao reveals that the most significant global conflicts of our time are not being fought with armies, but with stories. This book dismantles the worlds of your favorite entertainment -- from Hollywood blockbusters and Japanese anime to the explosive rise of Chinese donghua -- to expose the cultural DNA and political ideologies encoded within.

Drawing a clear line from classic political theory to the screen in your living room, Zhao argues that these cross-media franchises are sophisticated tools of 'soft power.' Each narrative "empire" is in a silent, high-stakes competition to shape global values, national identities, and the very future of belief.

This essential guide takes you inside the "story war" by:

• Deconstructing the "Hollywood Blueprint," showing how franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe export the American values of redemptive individualism and liberal consumerism.

• Investigating the "Dragon's Tale," a state-directed industrial project using donghua hits like Ne Zha to promote a new "individuated collectivism" and national pride.

• Analyzing anime's "Ambiguous Empire," a global cultural force whose philosophical depth and complex themes operate without a clear state mandate.

• Comparing the core values of the West and East through a direct case study of The Witcher's sociopolitical morality versus Lord of the Mysteries' existential, system-based world.

• Exploring the audience as the final battlefield, where fans actively resist, negotiate, and "poach" media to create their own hybrid identities.


Narrative Empires is an urgent look at the silent war for our hearts and minds. In an age of AI-generated content and escalating digital conflict, it proves that the power to tell the world's stories is the greatest power of all.

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• Politics & Social SciencesPolitics & GovernmentInternational & World PoliticsDiplomacy

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
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• Print Length: 57 Pages
• File Size: 462 KB