1
The Opium Wars This site offers the text and encourages discussion of Chinese Opium Commissioner Lin Zexu’s letter to Queen Victoria regarding the Opium Trade.
http://www.humanities.ccny.cuny.edu/history/reader/opium.htm
Questions for further exploration:
What are China’s objections to the Opium Trade? Why does it believe that the British government is failing to live up to its obligations in suppressing it? What benefits will accrue to England if it acts more vigorously to stop the trade? How is British trade in China placed in historical perspective? How may this letter be construed? Is it a confession of weakness, or the pronouncement of a confident state which still has an iron hand inside the velvet glove of diplomacy?
2
Taiping Rebellion These sites survey the course and impact of the Taiping Rebellion in China.
http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/taiping.html and http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/modern2.html
Questions for further exploration:
What were the more revolutionary aspects of the Taiping Rebellion? What roots did it have in traditional Chinese religion and society? What was the impact of the rebellion on China, especially in regard to the “self-strengthening” movement?
3
The Hundred Days of Kang Yu Wei http://www.bartleby.com/65/ka/KangYuwe.html
Questions for further exploration:
Kang Yu Wei drew upon what philosophical ideas to “modernize” China? What were two of the reforms that he recommended? Was Kang Yu Wei seeking to abolish the Qing Dynasty? Why was his reform program defeated and why was he forced to flee into exile? How does this illustrate the difficulties of “modernizers” attempting to reform traditional political systems from within, rather than through revolution?
4
The Boxer Rebellion of 1900 This site provides a close look into the role of Christian missionary activity in the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1900Fei-boxers.html and http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Pool/6208/title_page.htm
Questions for further exploration:
What were the causes of the Boxer Rebellion? What were the Boxers’ twin goals? What threats to Chinese sovereignty did Christian influence pose in China? Why could it be said that the line between Christian and European imperialism was as blurred during the Boxer Rebellion as the line between Boxer and Qing officials? How do you feel about the behavior of the threatened missionaries? About the looting of Beijing by European forces? What does such behavior tell you about the Chinese and Europeans?
5
Tzu-Hsi, the Dowager Empress of China These sites examine the life of one of China’s last imperial rulers, and certainly the last to hold and wield significant power.
http://www.kings.edu/womens_history/tzuhsi.html , http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/7545/TzuHsi.html and http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Pool/6208/Tzu_Hsi.htm (image only).
Questions for further exploration:
How does the Empress Tzu-His’s early life illuminate the traditional politics of the Chinese court? What was the role of women in that court? How was Tzu-Hsi able to garner political power? How did she use that power to resist both reform and foreign rule? How would you evaluate her political career?
6
Tanzimat These two sites offer insight into the efforts of the Ottoman Empire to match Western advances that threatened its sovereignty by at once expanding individual liberty while centralizing power in the hands of the Sultan and a more efficient bureaucracy.
http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/lect11.htm and http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/ottoman/module4/tutorial4a.htm
Questions for further exploration:
Who stood in the way of any reform initiatives within the Ottoman Empire? Who sought these reforms and why? What groups emerged to oppose these reforms? What was the role of Islam in the shaping of and the reception afforded these reforms. Overall, who were the benefited from the reforms and who did not?
7
Muhammad Ali This site offers a tutorial narrative on the political career of Mohammad Ali of Egypt composed of selections from various scholarly works interspersed with thought questions.
http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/ottoman/module4/tutorial4b.htm
Questions for further exploration:
During the Napoleonic Wars, the French army occupied Egypt for a short time and left a positive impression of the power of modern arms. Mohammad Ali attempted to “make Egypt another France.” Which France was that? The France of 1789 or that of the restored monarchy or French Empire? What role did France play in the early years of his rule? Why was he forced to incorporate peasants into his ruling system, what were is methods of doing so, and what impact did it have, particularly upon women? Why was he unable to seize control of the Ottoman Empire? Why were European views of his rule so negative? What were the new sources of wealth he tried to develop in support of his rule and why in the end did they fail Egypt? What impact did his rule have on the development of Egyptian nationalism?
8
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani These two sites offer a short biography of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and an essay he wrote, “Commentary on the Commentator” that encapsulates his Islamic revivalist views.
http://www.afghan-web.com/history/afghani.html and http://www.chass.ncsu.edu/khater/personal/Jamal_al-Din.htm
Questions for further exploration:
In “Commentary on the Commentator,” al-Afghani is reviewing the work of another writer who has published a commentary, or notes, on the Qur’an. What does al-Afghani feel about this work’s secularism? Will it save or harm the people of the Muslim world? Al-Afghani reviews the courses of other civilizations. Did religion harm their progress? If Muslims abandon their faith, what will happen to them politically as well as spiritually?
9
The Economy of the Ottoman Empire and its Imperial Decline This site offers a tutorial for students that attempts to show how the world economy and the economy of the Ottoman empire led to its ultimate decline.
http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/ottoman/module3/tutorial3b.htm
Questions for discussion:
Like most non-European states, the Ottoman Empire was the equal of, if not superior to, European states prior to 1750. How did changes in the world economy and the nature of the Ottoman system from 1500 onward slowly prepare the ground for Ottoman decline?
10
Young Turks This offers the text of a proclamation by the Young Turk movement expressing their view of political and economic reform.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1908youngturk.html
Questions for further exploration:
Discuss how this document is both an expression of modernizing reform and an assertion of what many at that time many thought was the best vehicle for that process, nationalism.
