J400: P-HIST-J300
ABOVE CLASS OPEN TO MAJORS ONLY
ABOVE CLASS OPN TO UNDERGRADUATES ONLY

This course examines revolution and nationalism as closely
interrelated ideas that increasingly came to dominate political and
social thought in Asia, as elsewhere, from the nineteenth century
onward. These concepts were both products and reflections of what
historians call the modern age--a time of rapid social change, new
geopolitical power arrangements, and increasingly intensive forms of
economic production and consumption. In great part, this will be a
class about ideas. We will examine the ways in which the concepts of
revolution and nations evolved in the major Asian societies of
India, China, and Japan from the late eighteenth century to the end
of the twentieth century. At the same time, we will also take note
of the social, political, and economic ways of acting--the social
movements, political programs, and economic policies--that these
concepts prompted. The exact nature of the relations between “ideas”
and “actions” or “ideas” and “historical events” remains a
complicated question with which historians constantly wrestle.
Throughout the class, therefore, we will attempt to reflect on
common assumptions about the ways ideas and doctrines influence
people’s actions, both in daily life and in such wider public
spheres as politics and economics. The course will make heavy use of
primary historical sources, and we will spend a great deal of time
learning how historians use such sources to inform their
understandings of the past.