HIST-280 Imperial China

Survey of Chinese social, cultural, and political history from the fall of the Han dynasty in the third century to the Manchu conquest in the seventeenth century. Focus on how Chinese writers have understood their own history on such questions of the rise and fall of dynasties and human interactions with powerful cosmic forces that determine fate. Examines the decline of the medieval aristocracy and the emergence of the Confucian gentry; the family and the changing status of women; military conflict with the Mongols and war with Japan in the sixteenth century.

Maximum Enrollment

Standard Course (40)

Credits

1

Offered

Fall

Notes

No previous knowledge of Asian history required.