University of Warwick
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
WAR, REVOLUTION AND REFORM: CHINA SINCE 1900
中国近现代史
(HI 168)
MODULE BOOKLET 2008-2009
Module Tutor: Dr. Christian Hess
Room 309, Humanities
Email: c.a.hess@warwick.ac.uk
Tel (024765) 23380
Office Hours:
Tuesdays, 11-12
Wednesdays, 2-3
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Introduction
This module examines the history of modern China from the last days of the Qing
dynasty at the turn of the 20th century through the present era of stunning economic
development and reform. We will focus on the interrelated themes of war, revolution,
state-building, and reform and trace how and to what extent these impacted the
complex process of forging new social, political, and cultural identities from the late
19th/early 20th century through the present day. China experienced constant warfare
throughout the period we examine, the effects of which must be factored into our
understanding of both the revolutionary process and in shaping social conditions and
identities. Likewise, Japanese imperialism and military invasion created an
environment in which Chinese people living under occupation had to make complex
decisions about the degree to which they might collaborate with, or resist occupation.
Finally, we will investigate the legacies of war, imperialism, and revolution for an
understanding of China’s rise as a global economic power.
Module Aims and Objectives
--To provide students with a broad exposure to the social, political, and economic
history of modern China
--To provide students with an opportunity to read and discuss an array of Englishlanguage primary source materials on numerous aspects of modern Chinese history
--To foster the development of student’s critical skills to evaluate historical sources
and arguments
--To examine in detail the impact of war and revolution on Chinese society with
particular attention to the unintended and paradoxical outcomes these events had on
Chinese identity throughout the 20th century.
Teaching Methods
There will be one 1-hour lecture and one 1-hour seminar each week. Lectures are
Tuesdays 10 am R.012.
You will be allocated to one of four seminar groups:
Group 1: Monday 3-4, H4.45 Seminar Tutor—Dr. Anne Gerritsen
Group 2: Monday 4-5, H3.45 Seminar Tutor—Dr. Anne Gerritsen
Group 3: Wednesday 11-12, H4.04 Seminar Tutor—Dr. Christian Hess
Group 4: Wednesday 12-1, H4.02 Seminar Tutor—Dr. Christian Hess
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Lecture Schedule
Autumn Term 2008
Week 1: Introductory Meeting (Friday, October 3, 10:30-10:45, Room H 545)
Week 2: Introduction/The Qing Dynasty (10am Room R.0.12 for this and all other
lectures)
Week 3: Imperialism in China
Week 4: Domestic crises and late-Qing Reforms
Week 5: The 1911 Revolution
Week 6—Reading Week
Week 7: Warlord China
Week 8: A Cultural Revolution: the New Culture/May Fourth Movement
Week 9: Mobilizing “The People”: New Identities, New Politics, 1919-1927
Week 10: The Nanjing Decade, 1928-1937
Spring Term 2009
Week 1: Japanese Imperialism in China
Week 2: The War of Resistance: Occupied Areas
Week 3: The War of Resistance: Nationalist China, Communist Base Areas
Week 4: Revolution in the Countryside: Communist Land Reform Efforts
Week 5: The Civil War, 1945-1949
Week 6—Reading Week
Week 7: Institutionalizing the Revolution: The Early Years of the PRC 1950-1957
Week 8: The Great Leap Forward 1957-1961
Week 9: The Cultural Revolution: High Politics, 1966-1976
Week 10: The Cultural Revolution: Lived Experiences, 1966-1976
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Summer Term 2009
Week 1: China “Opens” to the World: The post-Mao Reform Era, 1978-1980s
Week 2: Tiananmen Square 1989
Week 3: The Past in the Present: Post-Olympic China
Seminar Schedule
Autumn Term 2008
Seminar 1: Introductions/Major themes in modern Chinese history
Seminar 2: Imperialism and local Society: The Boxer Uprising
Seminar 3: New Concepts of People and Place: Early Chinese Nationalism
Seminar 4: Was the 1911 Revolution revolutionary?
Seminar 5: Destruction and Development in Warlord China
Seminar 6: The New Culture Movement
Seminar 7: Marxism and China
Spring Term 2009
Seminar 8: The Nanjing Massacre: History and the Politics of Commemoration
Seminar 9: Maoism and the “Yan’an Way”
Seminar 10: Land Reform and CCP Rural Policies
Seminar 11: Institutionalizing the Revolution/Occupying the Periphery
Seminar 12: The Great Leap Famine
Seminar 13: The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: Maoism and the rise of the
Red Guards
Summer Term 2009
Seminar 14: Tiananmen Square 1989: Twenty Year Anniversary
Seminar 15: Review
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Recommended Texts
I highly recommend that you purchase/ and or consult regularly at least two of the
following texts, available at the Library, Learning Grid, or for purchase at the
University bookstore, or though amazon.co.uk:
Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China (2nd Edition, 1999).
Hardcopies at Library and Learning Grid: DS 754.S7
Also for sale at University Bookstore
R. Keith Schoppa, Revolution and Its Past: Identities and Chang in Modern Chinese
History (2nd edition, 2006). Hardcopies at Library and Learning Grid: DS 755.S294
Also for sale in University Bookstore
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution 1895-1949.
Available as an e-book: Follow the links through the Library Catalogue
Hardcopies at Library and Learning Grid: DS 774.Z2
Also for sale in University Bookstore
Rana Mitter, A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World
Available as an e-book: Follow the links through the Library Catalogue
Hardcopies at Library and Learning Grid: DS 774.M4
Also for sale in University Bookstore
Maurice Meisner, Mao’s China and After
Focuses on political and ideological changes in China from 1949-1990s.
Hardcopies at the Library: DS 777.55.M3
Online Resources
Below are some very useful sources of information about China, ranging from
contemporary issues on politics, social issues, the environment, to more historical
topics. ChinaDigitalTimes, and the Chinabeat blog are highly recommended—often
very fun reading.
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/
http://thechinabeat.blogspot.com/
http://www.einnews.com/china/
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/
China and the UK:
http://www.sacu.org/index.html
http://www.chinatown-online.co.uk/
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http://www.dimsum.co.uk/
Module Requirements and Assessment
Regulation 13: “…failure to attend prescribed classes or to complete prescribed
coursework may result in a student being required to submit additional
assessed work, or to sit an additional written examination, or in the student
being required to withdraw from his/her course of study.” (Regulation 13.1
Section 1)
Assessment
First Year Students: Three (3) 1500-2000 word essays (best two contribute 50% of
final mark) and one (1) 4500 word paper.
Second Year Students: Three (3) non-assessed 1500-2000 word formative essays
and EITHER: 1 three-hour exam OR: one (1) two-hour exam and one 4500 word
assessed essay.
Module Webpage
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/undergraduate/modules/war_revo
Please consult this page regularly. Any updates or changes will be posted on this site.
Reading assignments for lectures, and links to online readings for seminars, along
with seminar discussion questions will all be available here. Following each lecture, I
will put PowerPoint images and slides used from that lecture on the site. These are
simply for your reference, and are by no means an adequate substitute for lecture
notes.
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The Seminar Programme
Fall Term
Seminar 1: Introduction 介绍
This will be an introductory session, discussing seminars, readings, lecture schedule,
and the general expectations for the seminar sessions. We will also cover some basics
about China, Chinese language and culture
Try and think of one or two questions about China/Chinese history that you might like
answered at some point during the module.
Seminar 2: Imperialism and Local Society: The Boxer Uprising
In this seminar we will explore the origins and impact of the Boxer Uprising, a
seemingly spontaneous movement of farmers and folk beliefs which quickly escalated
in scale and violence. The peak of the uprising involved thousands of Boxers
descending on Beijing to attack the foreign embassy district. Beijing was eventually
occupied by a coalition army of Western powers.
Main Questions:
--Leading up to the Boxer Uprising, what were some of the main political, economic,
and social challenges China faced?
--How did these challenges impact local society in areas where the Boxer movement
originated?
--Who were the Boxers? What were their beliefs?
--What were they trying to achieve?
--What were the links between imperialism and the Boxers?
Thinking ahead to themes next week:
--Was nationalism a motivating factor in the Boxer movement?
--What were the consequences of the Boxers: both in immediate terms, but also—
think about the legacies of the power of the masses…
Core Readings:
Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Chapter 3)
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;;idno=heb00382
Paul Cohen, History in three keys [electronic resource]: the Boxers as event,
experience, and myth. (Chapter 2)
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;;idno=heb00361
Paul Cohen, “Boxers, Christians, and the gods: The Boxer conflict of 1900 as a
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religious war” in Paul Cohen, China Unbound: Evolving Perspectives on the Chinese
Past. New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003
Additional Readings:
Fei Ch'i-hao: The Boxer Rebellion, 1900
A long account of anti-Missionary atrocities by a Chinese Christian
(http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1900Fei-boxers.html)
“Proclamations of the Boxers” in Teng and Fairbank, China’s Response to the West,
p.188-193.
Seminar 3: New Concepts of People and Place: Early Chinese
Nationalism
As the Qing dynasty began to implode from a combination of imperialism and of
internal crises, numerous officials and intellectuals rallied to try and save the system.
Their efforts ranged from “conservative” responses—arguing that the way out was a
more rigorous return to past practices, to more radical calls for dynastic reform—
including democracy and constitutional monarchy. These rapidly developing political
responses had a deep impact on the direction of Chinese nationalism, and on the move
toward the creation of a Chinese nation.
Main Questions
--How did thinking about “China” as a place change in the period from 1890-1911?
--Who is “Chinese” at this time?
--How does Liang Qichao define and describe the Chinese “nation”?
--How were new concepts of nation and race disseminated to “the people”?
Thinking ahead to themes next week:
--Did this new way of thinking about nation/race enable the 1911 revolution?
Readings:
Excerpts from Liang Qichao’s (note: also spelled Liang Ch’i-ch’ao) writings, in
DeBary, WMT, Sources of Chinese Tradition vol.2 p. 287-298. See also Teng S.,
1979 “Liang Ch’i Ch’ao and Chinese Nationalism” in China's response to the West: a
documentary survey, pgs. 220-223. Available as scanned course extracts on Library
website.
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution Chapter 3 “Ideas and ideals in the fall of
the Qing” p. 53-74. Text available as an E-book at Library
http://www.netlibrary.com/Details.aspx
Henrietta Harrison, “The Creation of Modern Nationalism” in China: Inventing the
Nation Hodder Arnold, 2001, p.88-131. Available as scanned course extracts on
Library website.
Frank Dikotter, “Racial Identities in China: Context and Meaning” in China Quarterly
no.138(June1994):404-412.http://08
www.jstor.org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/stable/654950
Zou Rong, “The Revolutionary Army”
http://www.chss.iup.edu/baumler/zourong.html
Seminar 4: Was the 1911 Revolution revolutionary?
Were events of 1911 revolutionary? Ok, it is called the 1911 Revolution, and the one
hand, events of 1911 can certainly be viewed and interpreted as revolutionary.
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. How then do
we characterize the 1911 Revolution?
--What was happening among political elites in the years just before 1911?
--What was the “Rights recovery movement”?
--How did the new ideas about nation, race, and nationalism from the 1890s onward
influence the events of 1911?
--Were the goals of the revolution accomplished?
--Who were the revolutionaries?
--What impact did the 1911 revolution have on society and culture?
Thinking ahead to themes next week:
--Was the first republic’s failure inevitable?
--Why didn’t this initial experiment in Chinese democracy work?
--In what ways did new concepts of race and nation play a part in the 1911 revolution?
Readings:
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
DOC. 56. “The Manifesto of the T’ung Meng Hui” in China's response to the West: a
documentary survey, pgs. 227-229. Available as scanned course extracts on Library
website
Mary Backus Rankin, Nationalistic Contestation and Mobilization Politics: Practice
and Rhetoric of Railway-Rights Recovery at the End of the Qing in Modern China,
Vol. 28, No. 3 (Jul., 2002), pp. 315-361
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3181336
Seminar 5: Destruction and Development: China under the warlords
“Warlord.” The title alone is associated with fragmentation, militarization,
exploitation and violence. China certainly saw all too much of this in the years from
1916 through 1927, often referred to as the Warlord Period. In the vacuum left after
the implosion of central power in 1916, dozens of military men rose to control areas
as small as counties, or as large as multi-provincial regions of China. They cut deals
with foreign powers, fought one another mercilessly, and grew and sold opium to
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finance their wars. All of this took a heavy toll on the people of China, particularly in
rural areas. But were the warlords just about destruction and the maintenance of
personal fiefdoms?
--Why did the first republic fail so quickly?
--Who were some major warlords, how did they operate?
--What impact did warlords have on life in rural areas?
--Can warlords be viewed as legitimate, state-building authorities?
Thinking ahead to themes next week:
--What impact did warlords have on politics in China?
Readings:
Sheridan, J. (1975) “The Warlords”, in China in disintegration: the Republican era in
Chinese history, 1912-1949. London: Free Press, Ch.3, pp. 57-106. Available through
Online Course Abstracts at the Library
Edward McCord, “Burn, Kill, Rape and Rob: Military Atrocities, Warlordism, and
Anti-Warlordism in Republican China” in Lary and MacKinnon, ed. Scars of War:
the Impact of Warfare on Modern China p. 18-49
Available through online Course Abstracts at the Library
Alfred H.Y. Lin, Warlord, Social Welfare and Philanthropy: The Case of Guangzhou
under Chen Jitang, 1929-1936 in Modern China, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Apr., 2004), pp. 151198. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3181340
Edward McCord, “Warlords against Warlordism: The Politics of Anti-Warlordism in
Early 20th century China” in Modern Asian Studies 30.4 (1996): 795-827
http://www.jstor.org/stable/312950
Seminar 6: The New Culture/ May Fourth Movement: Youth and Art as
Forces for Change
Main Questions:
--What was the ‘New Culture Movement’?
-- --What old ideals/morals/cultural practices were under attack by young intellectuals
at this time?
--What new beliefs/values/philosophies did they champion?
--Why was the concept of “youth” so important and radical?
--What role did new literature, like the stories of Lu Xun, play in the New Culture
movement?
Thinking ahead to next week:
What happened on May 4, 1919? How did these events change the course of the
‘New Culture Movement’?
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Readings:
Background:
DS 774.M4
Rana Mitter, A bitter revolution: China's struggle with the modern world (Chapters 2
and 3) Also available as an electronic resource through library website
Core Readings:
Chen Duxiu “A Call to Youth” in Teng and Fairbank, China’s Response to the West,
p.240-246.
Wang Zheng, Women in the Chinese enlightenment [electronic resource : oral and
textual histories Chapter 1 “Creating a Feminist Discourse” p. 35-67
Lu Xun, “A Madman’s Diary”
http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/luxun-calltoarms.html#Madman
Seminar 7: Marxism, Anarchism, and The People: New Paths of
Revolution
Main Questions:
--What were some of the central debates that emerged among New Culture/May
Fourth intellectuals at this time?
--What made Marxism attractive to New Culture/May 4th intellectuals like Li Dazhao
(note—also spelled Li Ta-chao)?
--Which specific aspects of Marxism were emphasized by Li as having great potential
for transforming China?
--To what extent did Li Dazhao alter Marxism to “fit” a Chinese context?
--Why did other intellectuals, particularly Hu Shi, criticize and ultimately reject
Marxism?
DS 774.M4
Rana Mitter, A bitter revolution: China's struggle with the modern world Chapter 4
Available as an e-book through library website.
Maurice Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the origins of Chinese Marxism [electronic
resource] Pages. 90-196
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/textidx?c=acls;cc=acls;q1=meisner;q2=ACLS%20Humanities%20Ebook;op2=and;rgn=works;rgn1=full%20text;rgn2=series;view=toc;idno=heb02395.00
01.001
Arif Dirlik, Edward S. Krebs Socialism and Anarchism in Early Republican
ChinaModern China, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Apr., 1981), pp. 117-151
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http://www.jstor.org/stable/188800
Module Reading List
The reading list is available as a PDF file on the module website. Should you
wish a hard copy, please let me know.
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