Modern Chinese History

This course is designed to give an introduction to the history of modern China from the Qing dynasty to the present, and to understand the continuities and the changes that help to shape Chinese society and the Chinese nation today. The course is divided into three segments. The first segment focuses on the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), the last flowering of the traditional Chinese world order, and moves from there through the long years of disintegration and the final collapse of the old empire. The second segment analyzes the great Chinese revolution (1912-1949)--in both the Nationalist and Communist phases--that has been one of the most significant episodes in the history of the 20th-century world. The third segment discusses the legacies of the Chinese revolution in the post-1949 period, which profoundly influenced and will continue to influence the political, economic, cultural, and social developments of contemporary China.