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Creating ChinaX . Feb 6 2013. Today. Bol – background and context Group discussions Group presentations Organizing labs. Fundamentals of Course Organization. Why a survey of China’s history? Multiple histories Geography, environment, climate Political and institutional history
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Creating ChinaX Feb 6 2013
Today • Bol – background and context • Group discussions • Group presentations • Organizing labs
Fundamentals of Course Organization • Why a survey of China’s history? • Multiple histories • Geography, environment, climate • Political and institutional history • Social history • History of religions • History of art • History of literature • Economic history • Intellectual history, history of philosophy
Fundamentals of Course Organization • Chronology • Themes/topics • Questions, problems, paradoxes
Background (the course to this point) 1 • Olympics and Geography • The beginning of civilization • Reading Neolithic artifacts • Legitimating power and overthrowing the King • Shang and Zhou • Bronzes and oracle bones • The age of philosophy • Confucius and competing schools
Background (the course to this point) 2 • Forging a centralized bureaucratic empire: Qin (221 -206 BCE) and Han (202 BCE-220) • Fundamental institutional tensions in the empire • E.g. centralization vs. regionalism • The changing balance between interests of the state and of society • e.g. taxation
Coverage this week • The “Period of Division” and foreign invasion; the reunification in 589 by Sui and Tang (chronology) • What themes? • Turning from state to self • Religion • Literature • Art – calligraphy
Reunification and the end of early imperial China • Tang as a cosmopolitan empire • Taking from the world • Providing a model for the world • Tang as an aristocratic empire • Contrast with later