Since 2013, the leading slogan of the People’s Republic of China has been the achievement of the “China Dream.” Xi Jinping has referred to this as the “Great rejuvenation of the Chinese people (Zhonghua minzu de weida fuxing 中华民族的伟大复兴).” The slogan is thoroughly modern (The phrase “Chinese people” didn’t exist until the 1890s)—yet clearly referential to the country’s past. How do we make sense of these tensions? How do people in China understand their past? Who were they? How has this past shaped the present and how might it influence the future (the “dream”)?
This course is an investigation of the history of China from 11th through the early 20th century in order to understand how the recent “rise” of China has both built upon and diverged from its imperial foundations. Special attention will be paid to China’s multiple roles in the development of the economy of the early modern world and the transformation of “China” into a vast, multi-ethnic empire during the seventeenth through eighteenth centuries. We will then examine how during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people in China grappled with the legacies of the imperial past and its intellectual traditions as they sought to build a rich and powerful state to compete with Europe, the US, and Japan.
- Trainer/in: Max Oidtmann