Seminar 4: Was the 1911 Revolution revolutionary?
The Qing dynasty, founded in 1644, ended in 1911. It would be the last dynasty in
Chinese history, ending a system of rule that stretched back several thousand years in
the past. There was a major revolutionary group, led by Sun Yat-sen who called
themselves ‘revolutionaries’ and who claimed responsibility for the establishment of
the new Republic. Looking deeper at what was happening at the local level, however,
and you begin to see less revolutionary change, and more continuity with the recent
past, specifically with events, policies and issues that the Qing began to deal with
from 1900 onward.
How then do we characterize the 1911 Revolution? Were the events of 1911 truly
revolutionary?
--Were the goals of the revolution accomplished?
--Who were the revolutionaries (radical students? Overseas Chinese? Businessmen?
Local elites?)
--How did new ideas about nation, race influence the events of 1911?
--What did the revolution look like in frontier/ non-Han Chinese areas?
--Did the 1911 revolution have an impact on Chinese society?
Readings:
Background Reading:
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution Chapter 2 “1911: History and
historiography”. Text available as an E-book through the Library
http://www.netlibrary.com/Details.aspx
Main Readings:
Joseph Esherick, ‘How the Qing became China’ (handout available outside my office
0.16)
George Yu, ‘The 1911 Revolution: Past, Present and Future’ in Asian Survey (October
1991): 895-904. Link via JSTOR (must be logged in with your Warwick username
and password) JSTOR via the Library website: Resources—Databases— select:
JSTOR, and type the author or title to pull it up in the JSTOR search window
Revolution, Counter-revolution, Devolution:
Xinhai in Lingzhou, Gansu province 甘肅靈州 Anthony Garnaut
http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=027_xinhai.inc&issu
e=027
Further Reading:
‘The Manifesto of the T’ung Meng Hui’ in Teng S. ‘China's response to the West: a
documentary survey’, pgs. 227-229. Available as scanned course extracts on Library
website (Scroll down the document toward the end to find this)
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/main/electronicresources/extracts/hi/hi16
8
See an excellent source, the latest issue of China Heritage Quarterly, which focuses
on the 1911 Revolution, known in Chinese as the Xinhai revolution:
http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/index.php
A great article on the significance of the que and the political and social significance
of changing hairstyles in China in the late Qing/Early Republic:
http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=027_queue.inc&issue
=027