Making of an Empire in China

Catalog description

The Great Qing (1644-1911), a multi-ethnic empire that conquered China proper from the northeastern borderlands, expanded into central Asia, Mongolia, and Tibet, and consolidated the China-based empire's control over its southwestern frontiers. An heir to both Chinese and Inner Asian traditions, the Qing empire laid the foundation for the modern Chinese nation-state. In this course, students will focus on the political, legal, social, cultural, and intellectual aspects of China's long eighteenth century. Students will also locate the early modern Chinese empire in a regional and global context, examining its power influence in Korea and Southeast Asia, and its encounters and interactions with Western and Japanese imperialist powers. These encounters and interactions contributed to the domestic turmoil and foreign invasions that eventually led to the demise of China's imperial tradition. But they also gave rise to new forces that would shape the fate of modern China in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. From Spring 2021 onward, this course fulfills the pre-1800 requirement for History Major. (ASIAN-SC, HIST-HAN, HIST-HPE)