[C] = Chen, Janet, Pei-kai Cheng, et al. The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton & Company, 2013. ISBN: 9780393920857.
[S] = Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. ISBN: 9780393934519.
Note: There are no readings for session 21.
| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS AND VIDEOS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | China Today |
Primary Source Readings Political Map of China, Maps of World. China, topographic-map.com. China linguistic map, Wikimedia Commons. Required Secondary Source Readings Chinese Pronunciation Guide for Beginners, meetMandarin. |
| 2 | Traditional China |
Required Secondary Source Reading [S] pp. 3–47. Optional Chen, Hongmou. “On the Duties of an Official.” (PDF) Asia for Educators, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Lü, Kun. “Preface to Models for the Inner Quarters.” (PDF) Asia for Educators, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. |
| 3 | The Qing in the Early Modern World |
Primary Source Readings [C] pp. 35–49 and pp. 63–67. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] pp. 48–114. |
| 4 | The Tribute System and Imperial Diplomacy |
Primary Source Readings and Visual Sources [C] pp. 77–93. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] pp. 115–35. Harrison, Henrietta. “The Qianlong Emperor’s Letter to George III and the Early-Twentieth-Century Origins of Ideas about Traditional China’s Foreign Relations.” American Historical Review 122, no. 3 (2017): 680–701. Mosca, Matthew W. “A Wealth of Indias: India in Qing Geographic Practice, 1644–1755.” Chapter 1 in From Frontier Policy to Foreign Policy: The Question of India and the Transformation of Geopolitics in Qing China. Stanford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780804797290. |
| 5 | The Opium Wars |
Primary Source Readings [C] pp. 94–110. Jones, William C., translator, with the assistance of Tianquan Cheng and Yongling Jiang. The Great Qing Code. Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780198257943. “Commissioner Lin’s Letter.” (PDF) Required Secondary Source Readings [S] pp. 137–63. |
| 6 | The Taiping Rebellion |
Primary Source Readings and Visual Sources [C] pp. 111–33. Li, Lillian M. “The Garden of Perfect Brightness-1: The Yuanmingyuan as Imperial Paradise (1700–1860).” MIT Visualizing Cultures. “Explore the Original Glory of China’s Old Summer Palace through VR.” YouTube. Optional Primary Source Readings and Visual Sources Excerpts from “The Land System of the Heavenly Kingdom (Tianchao tianmu zhidu): ‘The Taiping Economic Program’.” (PDF) Asia for Educators, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Excerpts from “Ode for Youth”. (PDF) Asia for Educators, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] pp. 164–85. Optional Secondary Source Reading Lagerwey, John. “Introduction.” In China: A Religious State. Hong Kong University Press, 2010. ISBN: 978988802803. [Preview with Google Books] Optional Guangxian, Yang. “I Cannot Do Otherwise (Budeyi).” (PDF) Asia for Educators, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Excerpts from “The Casebook of the County Magistrate Lan Dingyuan: ‘Depraved Religious Sects Deceive People’.” (PDF) Asia for Educators, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. |
| 7 | Reform and Self-Strengthening |
Primary Source Readings [C] pp. 134–54. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] pp. 186–207. Optional Primary Source Readings Feng, Guifen. “Excerpts from ‘On the Adoption of Western Learning’.” (PDF) Asia for Educators, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Yan, Fu. “Excerpts from ‘Learning from the West’.” (PDF) Asia for Educators, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. |
| 8 | The Boxer Rebellion |
Primary Source Readings [C] pp. 155–78. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] pp. 208–33. China Comes to MIT. (MIT’s first Chinese students.) Liang, Qichao. “Excerpts from ‘Observations on a Trip to America’.” (PDF) Asia for Educators, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. |
| 9 | The 1911 Revolution and the End of Imperial China |
Primary Source Readings [C] pp. 179–200. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] pp. 234–54. |
| 10 | The May Fourth Movement |
Primary Source Readings [C] pp. 201–43. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] pp. 257–300. |
| 11 | Nationalists and Communists |
Primary Source Readings [C] pp. 251–54, 258–62, and 290–309. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] Part III: Envisioning State and Society, pp. 301–48. Lu Xun. The True Story of Ah-Q. Foreign Languages Press, 1960. Marxists.org. Chiang, Kai-Shek. “‘Essentials of the New Life Movement’ (Speech, 1934).” (PDF) Asia for Educators, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Mao, Zedong. “Report on the Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan (March 1927).” (PDF) Asia for Educators, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Liu, Shaoqi. “How to Be a Good Communist (1939).” (PDF) Asia for Educators, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. |
| 12 | World War Two, Part 1 |
Optional Primary Source Readings and Visual Sources Ambaras, David, and Kate McDonald. “Bodies and Structures: The Transwar Romance of ‘Japan-China Goodwill’.” Scalar. Chang, Eileen. Love in a Fallen City. Translated by Karen S. Kingsbury. New York Review of Books, 2017. ISBN: 9781681372440. [Preview with Google Books] “Shina no yoru (AKA China Night).” YouTube. Required Secondary Source Reading [S] pp. 348–403. |
| 13 | World War Two, Part 2 |
Primary Source Readings and Visual Sources [C] pp. 318–44. Gersen, Jeannie Suk. “Seeking the True Story of the Comfort Women.” New Yorker, February 25, 2021. American Historical Association. Our Chinese Ally. 1944. Internet Archive. “The Battle of China.” YouTube. “The Last Emperor of China, Puyi, as the Witness in the Tokyo Trials.” YouTube. “Swords Drawn, Ep. 1 clip.” YouTube. “The Eight Hundred (official trailer).” YouTube. Required Secondary Source Reading [S] pp. 403–32. |
| 14 | The Communist Revolution |
Primary Source Readings [C] pp. 345–72. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] Part IV: War and Revolution, pp. 433–57. Esherick, Joseph W. “Ten Theses on the Chinese Revolution.” Modern China 21, no. 1 (1995): 45–76. Arranz, Adolfo. “How the Forbidden City’s Treasures Ended Up Divided between Beijing and Taipei,” South China Morning Post, February 3, 2019. Skinner, G. William. Rural China on the Eve of Revolution: Sichuan Fieldnotes, 1949–1950. Edited by Stevan Harrell and William Lavely. University of Washington Press, 2016, pp. vii–xii*,* 3–40, 191–211, and 219–32. ISBN: 9780295999418. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 15 | Building New China in the 1950s |
Primary Source Reading [C] pp. 362–89. Required Secondary Source Reading [S] pp. 460–93. |
| 16 | The Great Leap Forward |
Primary Source Readings [C] pp. 394–438. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] Part IV: War and Revolution, pp. 493–528. Wang, Ning. “The Making of an Intellectual Hero: Chinese Narratives of Qian Xuesen.” China Quarterly 206 (2011): 352–71. “Record of Talks between I.V. Stalin and Chairman of the Central People’s Government of the Perople’s Republic of China Mao Zedong (January 22, 1950).” Digital Archive, Wilson Center. “Minutes of Chairman Mao Zedong’s First Meeting with Nehru (October 19, 1954).” Digital Archive, Wilson Center. “Discussion between N.S. Khrushchev and Mao Zedong (October 2, 1959).” Digital Archive, Wilson Center. |
| 17 | The Cultural Revolution, Part 1 |
Primary Source Readings and Visual Sources [C] pp. 438–59. Hoberman, J. “Forgotten Masterpiece: Antonioni’s Travelogue from China,” New York Times, December 28, 2017. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung Set to Music. Foreign Languages Press, 1968. Cook, Alexander C., ed. “Preface,” and Chapters 1–3 in Mao’s Little Red Book: A Global History. Cambridge University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9781107665644. [Preview with Google Books] “Michelangelo Antonioni—Chung Kuo—Cina, Part 1.” YouTube. “The Red Detachment of Women—Live in Shanghai.” YouTube. Malcolm X on China and Mao Zedong: “Malcolm X: Struggle for Freedom, Part 4 of 4.” YouTube. “This Photo Triggered China’s Cultural Revolution.” YouTube. “Mao’s Red Guards.” YouTube. The TAZARA Railway. ChinesePosters.net. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] pp. 529–55. |
| 18 | The Cultural Revolution, Part 2 |
Primary Source Readings and Visual Sources [C] pp. 460–92. Honig, Emily, and Xiaojian Zhao. “Things Fall Apart.” Chapter 6 in Across the Great Divide: The Sent-Down Youth Movement in Mao’s China, 1968–1980. Cambridge University Press, 2019. ISBN: 9781108712491. “Nixon in China.” YouTube. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] pp. 559–86. |
| 19 | The Beginnings of Reform and Opening Up |
Primary Source Readings [C] pp. 493–520. Required Secondary Source Reading [S] Part V: Re-entering the World, pp. 587–622. |
| 20 | Taiwan and Overseas Sinophone Communities |
Required Secondary Source Readings [S] Part V: Re-entering the World, pp. 675–689. Brown, Kerry, and Kalley Wu Tzu-hui. “Contested Histories: From the Ming to Today.” Chapter 1 in The Trouble with Taiwan: History, the United States and a Rising China. Zed Books, 2021. ISBN: 9781786995216. “Tug of War: The Story of Taiwan.” YouTube. |
| 22 | From Family Planning to Protests to Deng’s Southern Tour |
Primary Source Readings and Visual Sources [C] pp. 520–65. “It is Necessary to Take a Clear-Cut Stand Against Disturbances,” Renmin ribao, April 26, 1989. Required Secondary Source Readings [S] pp. 623–65. |
| 23 | Economic Growth and Development in Mainland China, 1992–Present |
Required Secondary Source Readings [S] Part V: Re-entering the World, pp. 666–75. Fukuyama, Francis. “Empires of Resentment, Empires of Deference.” Chapter 22 in The End of History and the Last Man. Free Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780743284554. [Preview with Google Books] Ang, Yuen Yuen. “Balancing Variety and Uniformity.” Chapter 3 in How China Escaped the Poverty Trap. Cornell University Press, 2022. ISBN: 9781501764561. |
| 24 | Hong Kong, Singapore, and Chinese Identity |
Primary Source Readings and Visual Sources Barr, Michael D. Selections from Singapore: A Modern History. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. ISBN: 9781350185661. [Preview with Google Books] “The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China.” (PDF – 2MB) May 2021 edition. Dapiran, Antony. City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong. Penguin Australia, 2017. ISBN: 9780734399625. [Preview with Google Books] “How Singapore Built a Stable Society.” YouTube. “The Hong Kong Story.” YouTube. “Hong Kong profile – Timeline.” June 24, 2019. BBC. |
| 25 | China in the Xi Jinping Era |
Primary Source Readings and Visual Sources Ang, Yuen Yuen. “Introduction: China’s Gilded Age” and “Rethinking Nine Big Questions.” Chapters 1 and 7 in China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption. Cambridge University Press, 2021. ISBN: 9781108745956. [Preview with Google Books]. “INFOGRAPHIC: How the CCP Rules, a Guide to China’s Leaders of Party and State before the 19th Party Congress.” The Committee. Macro Polo.(Database of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party) “How the Chinese Government Works,” South China Morning Post. |
