Course Description:
This course is designed to introduce the main themes in Chinese history from neolithic times down to the Qing (this course ends at the First Opium War, which is commonly used by scholars to define the end of China’s “imperial/early modern” era and the beginning of the “modern era”); to explore the religious, moral and social beliefs of early China; to assess the significance of the institutions of state and family which have left such a striking imprint on the whole of Chinese history; and to give students a rounded perspective on the diversity as well as the essential continuities of Chinese culture in its formative stages and throughout the subsequent centuries.
