Modern China in Global History 1949-1999 (HIST20086)

“The whole point of writing something down is that your voice will then carry for thousands of miles, whereas in direct conversation it fades at a hundred paces,” said Italian Jesuit Priest and China mission founder Matteo Ricci (1552-1610 CE). And write something memorable he did, with his 1602 world map in Chinese characters introducing the findings of European exploration to East Asia. But China had hardly been in isolation from the world behind its famous “Great Wall” fortifications; rather, Chinese exchanges with and expeditions to far flung kingdoms in Asia and Africa occurred centuries before Ricci’s arrival, and continue with several polities to this very day. Chinese history is inseparable from world history, and one cannot understand either Chinese or world history in isolation from the other.

Accordingly, this 200-level seminar subject analyses the Chinese experience in the wider context of world and global history from the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 to China’s entry into the World Trade Organization at the end of the twentieth century. Its goals are to encourage students to identify and explore the multiple and intricate connections that “China” has forged with the wider world throughout its recent history, and to help students build on their craft skills of critical reading, thinking, and writing about the past, as well as primary source interpretation. The subject also aims to situate China in global and regional contexts, contextualizing China’s experience in adopting ideas and organizations from without, ranging from nationalism, Buddhism, Marxism, and Communism.