ASIA 101
History of Asia Since 1500
January 3, 2013
class requirements
• One five-page term paper, based on the lectures and the
assigned readings. Plus a short essay critiquing a specific
Wikipedia page.
• There will also be a mid-term, with one essay plus
multiple-choice questions, and a final exam, with two
essays, plus multiple-choice questions.
• In addition, you will be expected to participate in the
discussion groups (tutorial sections) and respond with
the iclicker to questions I show on the screen during
class.
class website
•
In addition to the ASIA 101 Vista site, I will maintain a
site at http://ubcasia101.weebly.com
•
I will post on that site a schedule for the assigned
readings, a glossary of key terms, and advice on how to
write the term papers and study for the exams.
•
Before each lecture, I will post an outline of the lecture
for you to download as an aid to taking notes. I will also
put on there the questions you should keep in mind
while doing the readings and listening to the lectures:
you should listen for and look for answers to those
questions.
What we will learn
•
The focus of this class is four-fold. We will study
•
the rise of nationalism (and the role imperialism played in
that)
•
democratization (a process not yet complete)
•
the rise of modern industrial economies
•
the changing role of religion, especially the role it plays in
national and ethnic identities.
•
We will also look at the role of language and writing in
defining modern national and ethnic identities.
Why a course on Asia only?
•
Most human beings live in Asia, and that has been the case
for millennia.
•
Year
Asia
Europe
•
1500
245
67 (14%)
17
87
42
3
461
• 1600
338
89 (15%)
22
113
13
3
578
• 1700
433
• 1750
500
• 1800
631
• 1850
95 (14%)
111 (14%)
former USSR
30
Africa
107
America
12
Oceana
World
3
680
35
104
18
3
771
146 (15%)
49
102
24
2
954
790
209 (17%)
79
102
59
2
1,241
• 1900
903
295 (18%)
127
138
6
1,634
• 1950
1,376
393 (16%)
182
224
332 (13%)
• 2000
3,736
511 (8%)
296
832
830 (12%)
165 (10%)
13
31
2,520
6,236
millions
Asia as half the world
•
In 1500 Asia had 53% of the world’s population, 245 out of 461 million
•
1600 Asia had 58.5% of the world’s population, 338 m out of 578 million
•
1700 Asia had 63% of the world’s population, 433 out of 680 million
•
1750 Asia had 64% of the world’s population, 500 out of 771 million
•
1800 Asia had 66% of the world’s population, 631 out of 954 million
•
1850 Asia had 63.6% of the world’s population, 790 out of 1.241 billion
•
1900 Asia had 55% of the world’s population, 903 m. out of 1, 634 billion
•
1950 Asia had 54.6% of the world’s population, 1,376 b. out of 2.520 billion.
•
2000 Asia had 60% of the world’s population, 3,736 b. out of 6.234 billion
Global population growth
•
Why has the population grown so rapidly over the last
century?
•
Better medical knowledge and practices
•
Better nutrition
•
higher incomes
•
As a result,
•
More children survive past the age of 5
•
more adults live to be past the age of 50
“Asia as a cultural unit
•
very little in common, except for Buddhism (with the exception of
the Philippines)
•
Has responded quickly to the challenge of the modern world
•
cultural regions within Asia:
•
East Asia: China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, North Korea,
Vietnam (Why is it in East Asia rather than Southeast Asia?)
• South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal
•
Maritime Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Timor
Leste, Borneo
•
mainland Southeast Asia: Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia
•
Where do Singapore, Tibet, and Mongolia fit into this scheme?
The Great Transformation
•
The past is a foreign country: there was little autonomy for
individuals, females had even less autonomy than males,
there was little geographic, occupational, or social
mobility. Plus life was short.
•
In the modern world,
•
subjects have become citizens, and in some cases have
gained freedom (something they did not have before), and
governments become less predatory. This means people,
and groups, now have rights
•
inanimate power has replaced animate power
•
Immersion in the market has replaced self-sufficiency.
Defining the modern world
•
people have moved from villages to towns and cities,
gaining more personal autonomy in the process
•
people now choose their occupations, and their spouses
•
education is available for everyone
•
women now can receive a public education, and also can
work outside the home and beyond their village.
•
nuclear families are becoming the norm
•
bio-medicine is widely available, replacing the gods.
•
people have adopted an ethnic and/or national identity.
Globalization and
localization
•
Race has become an important category for asserting
distinctiveness.
•
Religion has also become a marker of a separate and distinct
cultural identity.
•
“Orientalism” has created images of separate and distinct Asian
cultures (often seen as older and more spiritual than the immature
and materialistic West).
• Other markers of cultural distinctiveness remain:
•
language (both spoken and written), food, clothing, housing styles,
music, dance, drama, art, script, plus modes of interpersonal
interaction, and political culture.
Modernizing Tradition
•
Modernization often leads, first, to a repudiation of
many traditional practices, customs, and arts and then
a return to those traditions in modernized forms.
(Martial arts are one example. Traditional music and
drama also appear in modernized forms and formats.)
•
In the modern world, national cultures often replace
local cultures.
•
We can often find the legacy of tradition in patterns of
interpersonal interaction and in patterns of political
behavior.
East Asian governments in
1500
• China: a centralized bureaucracy with a very strong monarch, and a
bureaucracy selected with a Confucian civil service examination. (Ming
China)
•
Korea: a Chinese-style centralized government, but with a weaker
monarch and a civil service staffed by a Confucian scholar class
defined both by heredity and by performance on civil service exams.
(Chosŏn Korea)
•
Japan: A fragmented country under the rule of warriors. No civil service
examination and no effective central government. (Warring States
Japan)
•
Vietnam: A Chinese-style centralized government with a king, and with
a bureaucracy selected with a Confucian civil service exam. Not as
much social mobility as China.
•
The Kingdom of the Ryūkyūs looked Confucian in structure but did not
use the civil service exam.
Southeast and South Asia
•
Southeast Asia has kingdoms, but without the centralized control
over the entire kingdom or the non-aristocratic bureaucracy we see in
China
•
Important political entities are Madjapahit (Java), Melaka (Malay
peninsula) , and Ayutthaya (Siam)
•
South Asia lacked the sort of unified strong government we see in
China but the many kingdoms there were stronger than the kingdoms
of Southeast Asia. In the North, there were sultanates. In the south
there were Hindu kingdoms. In Ceylon (Sri Lanka), there were two
Buddhist kingdoms plus a Hindu kingdom.
•
I label the various governments of pre-modern Asia “predatory
governments” because they are run for the sake of the ruler rather
than for the sake of the ruled (though that is mitigated in some cases
by Confucian philosophy). The people are subjects, not citizens.
Those governments are governments of the rulers, not of the ruled.
Major trading linkages
•
South Asian merchants traded with the Malay
peninsula and Sumatra (and sometimes with Java)
•
Overseas Chinese ran trading networks linking
southern China with Southeast Asia.
•
The Kingdom of the Ryūkyūs linked Korea and
Japan, and sometimes China, with Southeast Asia
•
Within maritime Southeast Asia, there was trade
between the Spice Islands (Moluccas) and points
west---the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, and Java.
•
After 1500, the Portuguese muscled in on this trade.