Lahore University of Management Sciences

HIST 2211 Modern East Asian History

Fall 201516

Instructor Hasan Karrar

Room No. 109 New HSS Wing 2
Office Hours TBA
Email hkarrar@lums.edu.pk
Telephone 8225
Secretary/TA Naseeruddin
TA Office Hours TBA
Course URL (if any)

Course Basics
Credit Hours 4
Lecture(s) Nbr of Lec(s) Per Week 2 Duration 1 hr 50 mn
Recitation/Lab (per week) Nbr of Lec(s) Per Week Duration
Tutorial (per week) Nbr of Lec(s) Per Week Duration

Course Distribution
Core
Elective
Open for Student Category
Close for Student Category

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course surveys the history of East Asia China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam from the seventeenth century to the present. Heirs to rich and
distinct cultural traditions, East Asia remained distanced, albeit not isolated from global undercurrents up to the sixteenth century.

The arrival of Western powers in the seventeenth century changed this dynamic by triggering a process whereby East Asia would be increasingly
influenced by developments elsewhere in the world, namely scientific and industrial revolutions in the West in tandem with colonial expansion.
This process culminated in the nineteenth century with the regions integration in a world order dominated by Western powers as witnessed
through the Opium Wars (1838-42) in China, the arrival of Admiral Perry in Japan (1853), and French colonization of Indochina in the nineteenth
century. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, East Asia sought to grapple with a European modernity in the form of imperial exploitation.
As a corollary, many of the historical processes that we shall survey the Chinese revolution, Japanese imperialism, Korean and Vietnamese
nationalism was a response to the West, and an attempt to shape a new modernity catering to the perceived realities and needs of East Asia.

This is an survey course that provides a chronological overview of modern East Asian history in its many manifestations: imperialism and empire
construction, nationalism and identity politics, ideology and revolution, industrialization and state building. Alongside surveying the process of
political and economic change, this course shall also explore the lives of artisans, intellectuals, peasants, women, and the dynamics that shaped
everyday life.

This course is for students seeking to learn more about a region with a rich and complex past that is playing a pivotal role in the twenty-first
century.

COURSE PREREQUISITE(S)

None


 Lahore University of Management Sciences

Learning Outcomes

Grading Breakup and Policy

Attendance: 05%
Map Quiz 1: 05 %
Midterm: 25 %
Paper: 20 %
Map Quiz 2: 05 %
Documents: 10%
Final Exam: 30 %

The lectures and readings complement the other; students will be required to demonstrate familiarity with both during the quizzes and exams.

Plagiarism and cheating undermine the integrity of the academy. Unethical behavior shall be dealt with as per LUMS disciplinary regulations no
exceptions.

The dates for the quizzes and midterm, and the deadline for the paper shall be announced in advance. Please note that these dates are final
regardless of your extracurricular contributions to LUMS.

Please also note that to a considerable extent, grading in the Humanities is a subjective process. Further, I do not entertain bargaining for grade
revision based upon your assessment of your own academic prowess. If this unacceptable to you, do not take this course.

Textbook(s)/Supplementary Readings
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook (New York, The Free Press, 1993).
Huffman, James L. Modern Japan: A History in Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
Schirokauer, Conrad, and Donald N. Clark. Modern East Asia: A Brief History (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth / Thomson Learning, 2004).

Full publication information is provided in the schedule when a source other than those listed above is used.

The purpose of the survey text is to give students an overview of modern East Asian history. In addition, one objective of this course is to
introduce students to reading and analyzing primary sources. Primary documents are the building blocks for the construction of a historical
narrative and are foundational for making credible claims to knowledge. Historical documents can be read in a multitude of ways; this allows for
fresh insights and a textured and nuanced understanding of the past that secondary texts rarely provide.

Please note that is a reading intensive course. Your enrolment in this course is an indication that you are prepared to do all the assigned readings
even if we have not had the opportunity to discuss the readings in class. My preemptive reply to the evergreen question What is being covered
in the exam? is: EVERYTHING! If it doesnt seem worth your while to do all the readings, this is not the course for you.

Course Schedule
1. Preliminaries: overview of the course; the concept of East Asia.
Reading: None.

2. Human and Physical Geographies; the East Asian Tradition

Reading: Schirokauer and
 Lahore University of Management Sciences
Clark, 1-18.

3. The legacy of late Imperial China; the Manchu conquest and the establishment of the Qing dynasty; empire, economy, and ethnicity
through the eighteenth century
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 19-41; and The Yangzhou Massacre in Ebrey (ed.), 271-79.

4. Choson Korea; Korea in the eighteenth century; crises in the nineteenth century;
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark: 42-58; Primary TBA

5. The formation of Tokugawa Japan; rule by the Shogunate; cloistered emperors; Dutch learning
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 59-82; Closing the Country, A Feudal Regime, in Huffman (ed.), 20-36.

6. Later Le Dynasty Vietnam; the Tay Son Uprising; the Nguyen rulers
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark,103-111

7. Encountering the West; the Jesuits in China, Japan, and Vietnam; Canton trade; the Closing of Japan
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 83-100; Life Under the Tokugawa, 37-59;and, Two Edicts from the Emperor: September 1793, on the Occasion
of Lord Macartneys Mission to China, in China: A Teaching Workbook. Electronic citation:
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/modern/tch_mcem.htm

8. Internal disarray and fragmentation in the Qing dynasty; the crises of silver; the White Lotus Rebellion; the Opium Wars and the
Treaty of Nanjing; the Taiping Rebellion.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 112-126; and, Placards Posted in Guangzhou, in Ebrey (ed.), 311-313.

9. The arrival of Admiral Perry; the breakdown of the old Japanese order; internal unrest; the Meiji Restoration: revolution from
above?
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 127-148; Envisioning a New World, in Huffman, (ed.), 59-67; and, Charter Oath in Five Articles, and Letter in
the Name of the Meiji Emperor, in Donald Keene, Emperor of Japan: Meiji and his World, 1852-1912 (New York: Columbia University Press,
2002), 139-141.

10. The emergence of modern Japan; resistance to the Restoration; social Darwinism; the influence of the West; modernizing the army,
economy, and the industry; Japan flexes its muscle: Korea as a Japanese margin of expansion.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 149-167; and, Rising Nationalism, in Huffman (ed.), 83-87.

11. Self-strengthening movements in late Qing; the Empress Dowager;

Reading: Liang Qichao on His Trip to America, Riding China of Bad Customs, in Ebrey (ed.), 335-348.

12. The Tonghak Rebellion in Korea; the Sino-Japanese war; the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 169-191.

13. Reform in China: Too little too late?; the Boxer uprising; mounting discontent in the Qing dynasty and challenges to Manchu rule;
the ascendancy of Sun Yat-sen; Nineteen eleven: the demise of imperial China.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 194-203.

14. The birth of Republican China; the betrayal of Yuan Shikai; warlord rule in China; intellectual ferment; the May Fourth Movement;
nationalism and the Guomindang; the formation of the Chinese Communist Party; the rise of Chiang Kai-shek; the fallout between
the Communists and the Nationalists.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 204-218; The Spirit of the May Fourth Movement, in Ebrey (ed.), 360-364, and, Mao Zedong, Report on an
Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan, March 1927, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 1 (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1975),
23-29. Electronic citation: Modern History Sourcebook, www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1927mao.html

15. Imperial Japan; Japanese ascendancy in East Asia; encroachment on Taiwan and Korea; the Russo-Japanese War; politics and
governance.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 219-242; An Expansionist Turn, in Huffman (ed.), 87-97.

16. Vietnam under colonial rule; French administration and nationalist stirrings; Ho Chi Minh: nationalism or communism?
Reading: Ho Chi Minh, Program for Communist of Indochina, 1930. Electronic citation: Modern History Sourcebook,
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1930hochiminh.html
 Lahore University of Management Sciences
17. Japanese colonialism in Korea and Taiwan.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 243-271; and Kim, Richard E. Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970),
98-110.

18. The Second World War in East Asia; Japanese expansion into Manchuria; the Marco Polo Bridge incident; China at war; Pearl
Harbor and the War in the Pacific; the defeat of Japan.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 272-296; The Militarist Turn, in Huffman (ed.), 133-147.

19. The Second World War in East Asia, contd: The Communist momentum in China; the rise of Mao Zedong; Peoples War; the defeat
of Nationalists and their flight to Taiwan; the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 297-302.

20. The end of the War in Vietnam; Vietnamese independence; the fall of French Indochina; the Geneva Conference; the United States
and Ngo Dinh Diem.
Reading: TBA

21. The division of the Koreas; the Communist regime in North Korea; Syngman Rhee and American patronage in the South; the
Korean War.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 309-324; Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, 1945, in Ho Chi Minh Selected Writings (Hanoi: Foreign
Languages Publishing House, 1977), 53-56. Electronic citation: Modern History Sourcebook,
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1945vietnam.html

22. Continuous revolutions: ideology and state building in Communist China; the Sino-Soviet split; the Great Leap Forward and the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 327-347; Long Live the Revolutionary Rebel Spirit of the Proletariat, Red Guards in Nanning and Liuzhou Take
to the Streets to Clean Up the Four Olds, and March Forward Valiantly Along the Road Pointed Out by Chairman Mao, in Ebrey (ed.), 450-
455.

23. Post-War American occupation of Japan; industrialization in Japan

Reading: An Occupied Land, Awash in Capital, As the Century Ended, in Huffman (ed.), 161-167, 195-207.

24. South Korean Industrialization; communism in North Korea.

Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 302-308, 370-377, 396-407.

25. Vietnam: the deepening conflict; American intervention; the Tet offensive; the destruction of Laos and Cambodia; US retreat and
the fall of Saigon.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 408-418; Primary TBA

26. The Reform era in China; Deng Xiaoping at the helm; the Four Modernizations; the opening of China; foreign investment; China in
the 1980s and 1990s.
Reading: Schirokauer and Clark, 348-367; Peasants in the Cities, Defending Chinas Socialist Democracy, 488-496, 501-505.

27. Conclusion: legacies of the past, paths to the future.