HIST 223 - Early Modern China and the World: 1300-1900

This course surveys the history of China from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries, tracing the rise and fall of the Ming dynasty, the Manchu conquest, and the disintegration of the Qing empire. This course will not only “discover history in China,” but also situate China in a global context by discussing the flow of peoples, goods, and ideas into and out of China. After the Silk Road connecting the Eurasian continent declined with the end of the Pax Mongolica, China continued to be an engine of the Afro-Eurasia network and began to interact with the Americas. However, since the Great Divergence in the 1750s, China has scrambled to join a new international order. By analyzing the exchanges between China and other regions, students will understand how the concept of China was in flux and the dynamic role of China in the early modern world.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group II
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Evaluate data and/or sources;
Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other;
Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.