Two Millennia Surveys
Fall 2019
NYU CORE COURSE
CORE-UA 546. Lectures: MW, 2:00pm-3:15pm, Tisch Hall UC50
David Ludden
Professor of History
Traditional ideas about Asia lost their credibility when Asia began its rapid rise in the world of globalization, in the 1980s. The Financial Times has now proclaimed that an “Asian Century is set to begin,” when Asia will be “the center of the world.” Even Wikipedia now describes the “Asian Century” that we live in. Understanding Asia’s dynamism has become a subject of interest for all variety of scholars, students, and policy-makers.
Research into Asia’s current global dynamism quickly discovered that Asian cultures were never separate, closed, and static. Asian cultures have never been locked inside the national boundaries that we see on maps today. Rather, Asia has always been a sprawling diverse collection of inter-connected societies, cultures, and economies, with extensive connections across Africa and Europe and influential ties to the Americas after 1500.
The rise of Asia today is not the result of recent globalization; neither is it the result of any one culture, nation, or civilization, forging ahead, all of a sudden, for the first time. Rather, Asia remains a vast, complex, multi-cultural, inter-connected, driving force in globalization, today, as it has been for many centuries: Asia’s current rise to global prominence is a continuation of very long-term trends.
This Global Asia course is part of NYU’s Global Asia program, which has centers of research and teaching at NYU campuses in New York, Shanghai, and Abu Dhabi. This course is a one-semester survey of Asia’s dynamic mobility, connectivity, interaction, exchange, innovation, and territorial transformation, from ancient times to the present. The course has two parts. (Each part will form the subject of a one-semester course that will be offered in NYUAD in 2020-21, and subsequently in New York.)
Both parts emphasize spatial dynamics around Asia’s Circulatory System, spanning Central Asia and the Indian Ocean, which had prefigured China’s new Belt-Road Initiative by 1300.
- Part One covers ancient, classical, medieval, and early-modern periods — into the 19th century — to study “traditional Asia” as a historical process of dynamic spatial connectivity, and thus to relocate Europe’s global expansion in a Global Asia context.
- Part Two explores the creation of the modern world, after 1200, through Asian histories of global connectivity that shape Asian localities and world regions.
All these Global Asia courses begin by looking critically at national maps, because the world maps that we see from early school days permanently freeze global geography and thus conceal Global Asia dynamics. The world that national maps describe only came into being after 1945, when they were drawn under the impress of the world’s most powerful nations, who were victors in World War Two. Maps that formed a global cookie-cutter of national territories thus became a lasting legacy of Western imperialism.
National maps erase the human mobility that forms the historical context of all cultures. Human mobility and mingling make cultures dynamic. Asia’s mobility is the secret to Asia’s dynamic role in world history. Global Asia focuses our attention on the historical mobility of peoples and cultures. We see that spaces of mobility create environments where territorial power and authority exert control over cultural assets and investments.
Mobility and territoriality go together to shape one another. Mobility creates and changes social environments, while social forces of territorial enclosure work to define regions, places, and routes of travel. Boundaries separate and define territories, but they are imposed, constructed, and enforced inside spaces of mobility. Territorial discipline creates cultural boundaries that become part of human identity and generate passions attached to places, regions, and nations, where mobility and cultural mixing and mingling are always at work changing environments where people live and strive to make life meaningful.
Rather than being fixed and static, as they appear to be on maps of nations and civilizations, territories defined by ruling authorities are historically malleable, contingent, adaptive spatial forms: powerful people work to maintain territorial order inside spaces of mobility they do not control. Over the centuries, powers to enforce territorial order have expanded spatially and become more rigorous, as technology has also accelerated and extended mobility. Long distance travel has transformed more localities in more and more far flung regions, as territorial authorities have exercised more power over larger spaces.
In this light, we see that globalization is a very long-term process of expansive spatial connectivity and territorial transformation; it begins in Asia, in ancient times. We consider that process across seven time periods.
- During 300BCE-600CE, an Asian Circulatory System emerged as travels by land and sea knitted together empires spanning Central Asia, West Asia, Mediterranean, Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, Tropical Asia, and Northeast Asia.
- During 600-900, massive nomadic horse warrior steppe migrations broke up old imperial territories in East, South, and West Asia — for instance, they smashed the Roman Empire — and then trade routes shifted and connected imperial Byzantium, Arab Caliphates and Turkic warrior domains with Tang China and peninsular India.
- In 900-1200, tropical economic development produced new routes of opportunity connecting the Indian Ocean and Central Asia, running through India. Trade and imperial power expanded in South India and Southeast Asia, increasing connectivity around the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea, East Africa, and Persian Gulf.
- In the 1200s, massive Turko-Mongol military migration further integrated the Asian Circulatory System and pushed it around the Black Sea into Russia and Europe. Post-Mongol empires — circa 1300-1500 — focused military support for commercial investments in more concentrated connected territories. Increasing Asian wealth led Europeans blocked from direct access to Asia to invest in seaborne military mobility that brought the Spanish to America and the Portuguese to Asia by 1500.
- During early modern centuries, circa 1500-1800, Asia’s largest ever empires generated massive wealth as their coastal regions sustained expansive European military commercialism. An Interwoven Globe composed of seaborne networks anchored in port-cities around the world enriched Asian territories where European imperial power slowly increased its ability to control the mobility of economic assets around colonial port cities.
- During the period 1800-1950, European control over industrial mechanized mobility and military technology produced modern imperial capitalism that gave Europeans dominance over global mobility and territorial order. Asian territorial nationalism developed in that imperial context. Two World Wars among imperial nations, including Japan, destroyed the global European imperial order, which mobile nationalists and revolutionaries had rendered unsustainable.
- During 1950-2020s, Asia’s globalization continued with the global imposition of national state territorial authority, which remains unstable today, because of internal and external challenges from mobile economic, political, social, and cultural forces, all enhanced by technological change. The so-called “rise of Asia” is really an increase in Asian wealth relative to the pre-1950 century when it was suppressed by Western imperial control over the mobility of Asian economic assets.
In this course, we collapse these periods into a four-part sequence that provides a framework for student writing assignments.
Semester Outline
Part One (Weeks 1-6), Building the Asian Circulatory System in the Long First Millennium, circa 300BCE-1300CE (Ashoka to Kublai Khan)
Part Two (Weeks 7-9), Military Commercialism: Forging Global Regimes of Trade and Production, 1279-1820 (Kublai Khan to Napoleon)
Part Three (Weeks 10-15), Capitalist Militarism and Imperial Modernity: Empire, Nation, and Globalization, 1800-2020 (Cornwallis to Xi Jinping)
Assignment Due Dates
Writing Assignment Due Dates:
NOTE: Deadline extensions are not available; lateness is allowed for the first two papers, but not the last. Lateness is penalized proportionately.
Sept 11. 1-page paper, #1
Sept 18. 1-page paper, #2
Sept 25. 1-page paper, #3
Oct 9 ….. 5 page paper#1
Oct 23. 1-page paper, #4
Oct 30. 1-page paper, #5
November 4 — mid-term grades due
Nov 6: …… 5-page paper#2
Nov 25: 1-Page paper #6
NOTE: No class on Wed Nov 27. ENJOY Thanksgiving Break!!
Dec 11. …. 5-page Paper#3 DUE IN CLASS
Policies
ATTENDANCE and PARTICIPATION
Each week includes three meetings: two lectures and one discussion section. Attendance is required at all meetings. Attendance will be recorded and medically unexcused absences will be penalized.
Students who plan to take advantage of NYU’s policy of permitting absence to observe religious holidays must inform their instructors in the first week of classes. They must also make suitable arrangements for suitable work to compensate for absence. Class participation in discussion sections is essential and will be taken into account in calculating final grades.
READING and PARTICIPATION
Readings must be done before discussion sections, every week. Participation grades and weekly writing assignment grades will depend on demonstrated understanding of the reading and the lectures. If you do not understand readings, or have any questions related to the course, talk to your instructors in discussion sections on Fridays and/or attend their office hours.
WRITING
Instructions for all assignments will be provided only in lectures. They will not be posted on the website in advance of the due date.
All writing assignments are due in hard copy at the start of discussion sections on Fridays. All assignments must be handed in person, in hard copy, to the instructor in each student’s discussion section.
No email submissions will be accepted.
There are two kinds of required writing assignments. All writing assignments must be double-spaced in 12-pt type with one inch margins. PAGE LIMITS ARE PART OF THE ASSIGNMENT (overflow text will not be read):
- Six 1-page papers. Students must complete six 1-page writing assignments based on reading and course presentations, due at the start of discussion section. Assignments will be given in class.
- Three 5-page papers. Students must write three five-page essays, based on all available course material, under instructions provided in lectures and discussion sections. Assignments will be given in class.
Deadline extensions are not available. Lateness is allowed for the first two five-page papers, but not the last. Lateness for anything is penalized proportionately.
GRADING
Assistant Instructors do all the grading. They are advanced graduate students who design and lead all discussion sections.. Their decisions are final.
Grading is on a point system. Weekly writing assignments are worth 7 points each (6 weeklies = 42 points). Five-page papers are 16 points each (3 x 16 = 48). Attendance and participation are worth 10 points. (Total: 42+48+10 = 100).
Please note: Small grade deductions matter. To get an “A” in this course, students must do good work in all areas, all term long. Each unexcused absence is penalized one participation point.
Lack of preparedness or participation in Friday discussion sections can be penalized in the weekly paper grade.
There will be no extra credit assignments. Grades will be based only on student work done for assignments listed in the syllabus.
Final grade point equivalents: A = 94-100; A- = 90-93; B+ = 85-89; B = 80-84; B- = 75-79; C+ = 70-74; C = 65-69; C- = 60-64; D=50-59; F=<50.
Midterm grades are calculated proportionately on the basis of grades at the end of Week 7, including grades for four 1-page weeklies and one 5-page paper.
Resources
Course PPT Slides.
Online READING:
- OUP Online Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (OREAH)
- Asia’s Circulatory System Prezi
- Global Asia E-Books (2 Aug 2018). (Requires NYUHome Login)
- Global Asia PDF Collection (Sept 2018) (Requires NYUHome Login)
Gallery of visual Materials (Requires NYUHome Login)
Instructors
David Ludden
David Ludden is the Emeritus Founding Director of the Center for Global Asia in New York and Professor of Political Economy and Globalization in the NYU Department of History. His work focuses broadly on histories of empire, capitalism, globalization, and agrarian environments.
Assistant Instructors
Arash Aziz
hours: Wed 11:15-1:15, in KJCC527. Arash is a PhD student in History and Middle Eastern Studies. He works on revolutionary movements in Iran and the Arab world and their role in the global Cold War.
Ilan Benattar
Office Hours: Wed 11:30-1:30 in KJCC 527. Ilan is a PhD candidate in Hebrew and Judaic Studies/History. His research focuses on Jewish intellectuals in the late 19th and early 20th century Ottoman Empire.
Anirban Karak
hours: Mon 11:00-1:00, in KJCC 527. Anirban is a PhD student in History. He studied economics in India and completed an MA in Political Economy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research focuses on commercialization, politics, and culture in eighteenth century South Asia.
Leela N. Khanna
Office hours: Wed 9-11 AM, in 25 Waverly Place, Rm 200. Leela is PhD student in anthropology. She works on contemporary Hindu nationalism, and specifically, on university attending women who join the Hindu nationalist organization Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP)
Weekly Schedule
Notes
Many links require access via NYUHome
You must make an Ebook Central account if you don’t already have one
IF OREAH Links do not work, search the title of the reading at this link: https://oxfordrecom.proxy.library.nyu.edu/asianhistory/browse/
You should do the reading for each week by Monday, and plan to write one-page papers on Tuesdays, in order to take advantage of material presented in class on Monday. One-page assignments must be presented in hard copy to instructors in discussion sections, on Wednesday.
PART ONE. (Weeks 1-6)
Creating Asia’s Circulatory System in the Long First Millennium, 300BCE-1300CE (Ashoka to Genghis Khan)
Week 1
Introductions
Notes
Reading: Course Description (with text links), Assignments, Policies, Resources
MANDATORY Wed. Sept 4. Morning. Discussion Sections. See Albert for time and place. Discuss the Course Description in preparation for 1 page Paper #1, due on Sept. 11
Wed Sept 4. 2:00 PM – 3:15 PM. TISC_UC50
Introducing the Website, Course, Staff, Policies, Assignments, and Resources. Basic environmental geography and the importance of winds, rains, and monsoons for the “global” in Global Asia.
Week 2
Mobile lifeways in Central Asia: Ecology, environment, wealth, and power
Reading
John Brooke and Henry Misa, “The Ecological History of Inner Asia.” (OREAH PDF ).
David Christian, “Silk Road or Steppe Roads?“ (PDF).
Peter Golden, “Early Nomads: Warfare is their Business,” Chapter Two in Central Asia in World History.
Armin Selbitschka, “The Early Silk Road(s),” (OREAH).
Reference
Rafis Abazov, Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Central Asia, Chaps 1-2. Introduction and Chapters 1-3. Nomads As Agents of Cultural Change : The Mongols and Their Eurasian Predecessors, edited by Reuvan Amitai, Michael Biran, and Anand A. Yang, (Chaps 1-4, pre-Mongol; Chaps 6-12, Mongols). Nomads in the Sedentary World, edited by Anatoly M. Khazanov and Andre Wink, especially Chap 1, by Khazanov.
Notes
Mon Sept 9. 2:00 PM – 3:15 PM. TISC_UC50
Mobile “nomadic” ways of life connect various Steppe regions with, Farmland, Mountains, and Coast all around. Pastoral nomadism as a changing process. changing over time: 300BCE-600CE, circa 600-900, circa 900-1200, circa 1200-1700, circa 1700-2000. In class reference: Nomadic Peoples of Central Asia
Wed Sept 11. Discussion Sections. 1 page paper #1 due today: Why is Central Asia the original heartland of globalization?
Wed Sept 11. Spatial Patterns and Chronologies of nomadic connectivity with Persia, India, and China, east-west-and south via Indo-Persia. Kushan/Yuezhi, Turks, Arabs, and Mongols. The centrality of Sogdiana, Transoxiana/Mawarannahr (“land beyond the Oxus/Amu Darya river“), Khorasan, Khwarezm, Bactria, Tokharistan, Tashkent, Samarkand.
New Reading: Lukas Nickel, “The First Emperor and Sculpture in China” (presenting evidence for Indo-Greek influence on ancient imperial China, with thanks to Yijun Wang)
Week 3
Monsoon travels, Coastal Asia, Empires, and Buddhism: Early centuries CE.
Required reading
Raoul McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East : Trade Routes to the Ancient Lands of Arabia, India and China, Chapters 2-4, pp. 23-109.
Richard Davis, Global India circa 100CE, pp. 6-44. Max Deeg, “Chinese Buddhist Travelers” (OREAH PDF).
Tansen Sen, “Buddhism and the Maritime Crossings.” (16pp)
Recommended reading
Atholl, Anderson, “The Peopling of Madagascar” (OREAH).
Himanshu Prabha Ray, “Maritime Archaeology of the Indian Ocean” (OREAH).
Roxani Margariti, “Medieval Jewish Sources for Asian Trade” (circa 600-1200), (OREAH PDF).
Jean Deloche, “Roman Trade Routes in South India.”
Jason Emmanuel Neelis, Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks : Mobility and Exchange Within and Beyond the Northwestern Borderlands of South Asia, Chapters 1, 2, 6.
John Guy, “Introducing Early Southeast Asia,” pp. 3-13 in Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture in Early Southeast Asia, edited by John Guy.
Notes
Mon Sept 16. Alexander and the age of the Periplus: The western routes, Indo-Persia, and Yavanas in South India.
Wed Sept 18. Discussion Sections. 1-page weekly paper #2. How do monsoons form a spatial context for cultural history? Consider the relevance of both monsoon winds and monsoon rains for defining contexts of mobility and territoriality — remember this Core Course is in the “Cultures and Context” category.
Wed Sept 18. Circuits of Buddhism: overland and overseas. In Class Reference: MetMuseum Heilbrun essay on Buddhist Art . Faxian travel map.
Week 4
Migration and trade transform territory, 600-900. Huns, Turks, Arabs, Byzantium and Caliphates
Reading
Jane Burbank and Fredrick Cooper, Empires in World History, Chapter 3,
“After Rome: Empire, Christianity, and Islam,” pp. 61-91.
Michael R. Drompp, “The Kök Türk Empires,” OREAH.
Timothy May, “Nomadic Warfare Before Firearms,” OREAH. On the Battle of Talas
Reference
Svat Soucek, History of Inner Asia, Chapter Two, on Kok Turks.
Michael R. Drompp, “The Uyghur Empire (744-840),” OREAH.
Oleksandr Symonenko, “Warfare and Arms of the Early Iron Age Steppe Nomads,” OREAH .
Notes
Sept 23. Roman Trade. Norman Underwood visiting lecture. I will miss this.
Sept 25. Discussion Sections. 1-page weekly paper #3. Discuss the interaction between Empire and Trade. Be specific about geography. Consider routes of supply (mobility) and sites of demand (territoriality).
Sept 25. The Caliphates. From the origins of Islam to the Abbasid Revolution: from the Hijaz to Khorasan
Week 5
Empires connect through the monsoon tropics, 900-1200: Abbasids, Rashtrakutas, Srivijaya, Belitung, Cholas, Tang and Song
Reading
James Anderson, “China’s Southwestern Silk Road in World History.”
Philip Curtin, Cross Cultural Trade and World History, Introduction.
John Miksit, Chinese Ceramic Production and Trade” (OREAH) and Tamara Bently, “Trade in the East and South China Seas.” (OREAH).
Kenneth Hall, Early Economic History of Southeast Asia, pp. 196-215.
Reference
Chakravarti, Sindbad and India.
Goiten, Genizah Letters.
Cambridge University Digital Library, Cairo Genizah. Fatimid Art and Cairo.
Ronald Edwards, “Redefining Industrial Revolution.”
Notes
Sept 30. The Emerging Centrality of South India and Southeast Asia
Oct 2. Discussion Sections. 5-page paper #1 Due next week. Here is the assignment. Describe the major features of Asia’s Circulatory System BEFORE the Mongol imperial expansion; consider its creators (people), geography (spaces), and chronology (in centuries).
Oct 2. The Circulatory System, circa 1200. 5-page paper #1 Q&A and ways to approach the assignment.
Week 6
Mongols enhance circulation: 13th-century mobility, war, and culture
Reading
Jos Gommans, “The Warband the Making of Eurasian Empires.”
Michal Biran, “The Mongol Empire and inter-civilizational exchange.”
Michal Biran, “The Mongol Transformation: From the Steppe to Eurasian Empire.”
Reference
Pederson et al, “Pluvials, Droughts, The Mongol Empire, and Modern Mongolia.”
Michael Brose, “Medieval Uyghurs from the 8th to 14th Century,” OREAH.
Notes
Oct 7. The World of the Mongol Empire. (A summary of Part One)
Oct 9. Discussion Sessions, Paper #1 Due today (Assignment see Oct 2). Discuss today the novelty of the Mongols.
Oct 9. The Mongol Empire and Successors. Chinggisids, Timurids, Tatars, The Black Sea, Venice, The Black Death, and contradictory impact on Europe.
PART TWO. (Weeks 7-9)
The Great Asian Empires: Military Commercialism, 1200-1800 (Kublai Khan to Napoleon)
Week 7
Military power promotes commercial expansion, 1200-1400
Reading
Mongols in World History (Columbia University Website).
Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion.
Johan Elverskog, “Buddhist and Muslim Interaction in Asian History,” (OREAH PDF).
Michael Hope, “Bukhara under the Mongols,” (OREAH).
Thomas Allsen, “Mongol Princes and their Merchant Partners.”
Peter Bozian, “The Role of Ortoy Merchants in the Mongolian Court: From the Rise of the Mongol Empire to the Fall of the Yuan Dynasty.”
Reference
Mongol Timeline. China Under Mongol Rule, edited by John D. Langlois.
Morris Rossabi, Eurasian Influences in Yuan China.
Viewing
“The Mongol Empire and Kublai Khan,” History Channel, 47:18.
Notes
Oct 14. FALL BREAK. CLASS MEETS ON TUES October 15.
Oct 15. Mongol Regions of Imperial Connectivity: 1200-1400s. Ilkhans, Golden Horde, Chagatayids, and European Connections.
Imperial territory as mobility infrastructure: transport and protection costs; locational advantage; investment landscapes; long-distance trade; geographical knowledge; intellectual, artistic, and commercial mobility. See assignments for 1-page due Oct. 30 and 5-page paper #2 below due Nov 6.
Oct 18. Discussion Sections. No Response paper due. Discuss reading and Mongol military expansion of commercialism in the four regions.
Oct 16. Mongol Regions of Imperial Connectivity: 1200-1400s. Kublai Khan, Yuan Dynasty, Persia, Timur, and the Timurids. The foundations of Asia’s Great Imperial Territories: Russian, Ottoman, Mughal, Ming/Qing.
Week 8
Monumental Empires, 1300-1650: Ming, Qing, Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal
Reading
Beatrice Manz, “Tamerlane and the Timurids” (OREAH).
Michael Fisher, “The Mughal Empire.” (OREAH)
Stephen F. Dale, “The Rise of Muslim Empires,” in The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals, 48-76.
Andre Wink, “Post-Nomadic Empires: From Mongols to Mughals,” in Peter Fibiger Bang and C.A.Bayly, editors, Tributary Empires in Global History, pp.121-31.
Matthew Romaniello, “Transregional Trade in Early Modern Eurasia,” OREAH.
Johan Elverskog, “The Tumu Incident and Chinggisid Legacy.”
Tansen Sen, “The impact of the Zheng He Expeditions.”
Peter Perdue, “The Expansion of the Qing Dynasty and the Zunghar Mongol State,” (OREAH).
Reference
Jerry Brotton, The Renaissance Bazaar: From the Silk Road to Michelangelo;
Rosamund Mack, Bazar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300-1600. Berkeley ORIAS Website on Ibn Batuta.
Tamara Bently, “Trade in the East and South China Seas.” (OREAH).
Giancarlo Casale, “The Islamic Empires of the Early Modern World,” in The Cambridge World History, Volume VI: The Construction of a Global World, 1400-1800 CE, 323-344.
Richard von Glahn, “Myth and Reality of Seventeenth Century Monetary Crisis.”
Notes
Oct. 21. Ming and Qing. Yijun Wang, Visiting Lecture. Slides at this link.
Oct 23. 1-page weekly paper #4. Discuss the main points in Yijun Wang’s lecture on Monday.
Oct 23. Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal. Ayse Baltacioglu-Brammer, Visiting lecture. Here are her slides in PDF format.
Week 9
Imperial expansion across continents, connected by sea: 1500-1850
Reading
Dennis O.Flynn and Arturo Giráldez, “Born with a ‘Silver Spoon’: The Origin of World Trade in 1571,”Journal of World History, 6, 2, 1995, 201-221.
Arturo Giráldez, The Age of Trade : The Manila Galleons and the Dawn of the Global Economy.
M. van Rossum, “The Dutch East India Company and Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago Worlds, 1602-1795” (OREAH).
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, “Empires in their Global Context, c.1500-c.1800.” Chapter 6 in The Atlantic in Global History, 1500-2000, edited by Jorge Canizares-Esguerra, Erik R Seeman.
Tirthankar Roy, “Origins of British India.” (OREAH).
A.C.S. Peacock, “The Ottoman Empire and the Indian Ocean,” (OREAH).
Peter Perdue, “The Rise and Fall of the Canton Trade System -1: China in the World (1790s-1860s)”
Reference
Michael Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier : The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500-1800.
Michael Charney, “Warfare in Pre-Modern Southeast Asia.” (OREAH).
K.Mukund, “Indian Textile Industry in the 17th and 18th Century.” The East India Companies and European Imperialism.
Reading: Rudranghsu Mukherjee, “What Made The East India Company so Successful?”
Notes
Oct 28. Port Cities, Coastal Regions, and Global Networks … Imperial Engines of Global Connectivity. PAPER #2 builds on 1-page weekly #5 assignment below.
Oct 30. Discussion Sections. 1-page weekly paper #5. How did the Asian empires promote global commercial expansion: keep in mind the importance of transportation costs, urbanism, military supplies, taxation, European connections, and elite consumption.
Oct 30. VOC in Asia. Susanah Romney, visiting lecture. Slides available at this link.
Capitalist Militarism and Imperial Modernity: Empire, Nation, and Globalization, 1800-2020 (Cornwallis to Xi Jinping)
Week 10
Spatial Foundations for Imperial Modernity
Reading
Russia:
- Alfred Rieber, “Russia in Asia” (OREAH).
- Andreas Wilde, “The Emirate of Bukhara” (OREAH).
- Adrian Brisku, “Ottoman Russian Relations” (OREAH).
- Michael Kemper, “Russian Orientalism.” (OREAH).
Indo-Persia:
- Herman Kreutzmann, “The Historical Geography of the Pamirs.” (OREAH).
- David Ludden, “The Process of Empire: Frontiers and Borderlands,” in Peter Fibiger Bang and C.A.Bayly, editors, Tributary Empires in Global History, pp. 132-148.
- David Ludden, “The Centrality of Indo-Persia”.
Caucasus:
China:
- Peter Perdue, “The Expansion of the Qing Dynasty and the Zunghar Mongol State,” (OREAH).
- Victor Lieberman, “The Qing Dynasty and Its Neighbors: Early Modern China in World History,” Social Science History, 32, 2, 2008, 281-304.
- Rian Thum, “The Uyghurs in Modern China.” (OREAH).
- Victor Lieberman, “The Qing Dynasty and Its Neighbors: Early Modern China in World History,” Social Science History, 32, 2, 2008, 281-304.
- Scott Levi, “Asia in the Gunpowder Revolution,” (OREAH).
- Nianshen Song, “Power and Trade between Qing China and Chosŏn Korea.” (OREAH)
Notes
Nov 4. Midterm grades due today. Paper #2. Summary of Part Two themes. From the Mongols (1200s) to British India (1700s): Imperial Space, from Central Asia to the Sea. + Q&A.
Nov 6. Discussion Sections. Paper#2. 5-PAGE PAPER DUE TODAY. This paper is based on readings and presentations for PART TWO. Discuss the interaction of imperial militarism and long-distance commercialism connecting Europe and Asia between 1200 and 1800. Be specific about people, places, and activities which are important in this interaction. See Oct 30 assignment for reference.
Nov 6. Modern Imperial Territory 1: Competing Empires carve up mobile space around the Silk Road, Steppe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and Indo-Persia. The Global Asia context of “The Great Game.”
Week 11
Globalization , Imperial Space, and Territorial Inequity
Reading
Adam McKeown, “Periodizing Globalization.” Adam McKeown, “Chinese Emigration in Global Context, 1850-1940,” Journal of Global History, 5. 2010. Adam McKeown, “A World Many Many: Integration and Segregation in Global Migration, 1840-1940,” in Connecting Seas and Connected Ocean Rims, pp.42-64.
Ulbe Bosma and Anthony Webster, “Commodities, Ports and Asian Maritime Trade since 1750: The Foundation of the Modern Asian ‘Economic Miracle,'” in Commodities, Ports and Asian Maritime Trade Since 1750, edited by Ulbe Bosma and Anthony Webster, Chapter 1, pp. 1-16. Cesar Ducruet, “Asian Cities in the Global Maritime Network Since the Late Nineteenth Century,” Chapter 8 in Asian cities, Colonial To Global, edited by Peter Bracken, pp.173-187.
Richard B. Allen, “Asian Indentured Labor in the 19th and Early 20th Century Colonial Plantation World” OREAH. Jayati Bhattacharya, “Connectivity across the Bay of Bengal in the 19th and 20th Century.” (OREAH) Mariko Ijima, “Japanese Diasporas and Coffee Production.” (OREAH)
Jeffrey Wassertstrom, Global Shanghai 1850-2010: A history in fragments, pp. 1-62. Par Cassel, “Treaty Ports and Foreign Community in Modern China. “(OREAH) Lakshmi Subramanian, “Parsi Traders in Western India, 1600-1900.” (OREAH) Chhaya Goswami, “Kachchis in East Africa.” (OREAH) Magnus Marsden and Ben Hopkins, “Afghan Trade Networks.” (OREAH)
Reference
Wiley Online Library: Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. MAPS
Notes
The Framework for 5-page Paper #3. Use history over the last 200 years in one part of Global Asia as context for understanding some pressing contemporary concerns: you can think of this as “History in the Headlines,” but you can make up your own headline issues to consider.
Nov 11. Modern Imperial Territory 2a: Economic Growth, Spatial Inequality and the Chronology of European Imperialism, 1800-2000
Viewing: Hans Rosling, “200 Years that Changed the World.” YouTube: The Rise and Fall of the British Empire.
Nov 13. Discussion Sections. Describe the composition of Asian imperial space before 1914. Consider the entire expanse of Mongol expansion.
Nov 13. Modern Imperial Territory 2b, or, The Imperial Space of Globalization: Commodities, Capital, and Labor and Port City Environments
Week 12
Imperial Territories and Nationalities
Reading
On Technologies of Mobility: Alan Baumler, “Aviation and Asian Modernity 1900-1950.” (OREAH)
Japan: A funny (warning: can be offensive) but useful video: History of Japan. Philip Seaton, “Japanese Empire in Hokkaido.” (OREAH) Emer O’Dwyer, “Japanese Empire in Manchuria.” (OREAH). Sven Saaler, “Japanese Empire and PanAsianism.” (OREAH).
China: Perdue and Sebring, “The Boxer Uprising, I, II, II” and other readings in “Visualizing Cultures” online collection. Xiaohong Xu, “The Origins and Growth of the Chinese Communist Movement.” (OREAH)
Central Asia: Peter Finke, “Ethnicity of Turkic Central Asia.” (OREAH) Rafis Abazov, “Modern Kyrgyzstan.” (OREAH)
West Asia: Ilan Pappe, “Modern Palestine” (OREAH). Nikki Keddie, The Revolt of Islam.
Indonesia: Henk Schulte Nordholt, “Cultural Citizenship and Modernity in the Netherlands Indies. (OREAH).
South Asia: Sanjay Joshi, “India’s Middle Class” (OREAH). Anirudh Deshpande, “The Indian Army, 1850-1950.” (OREAH). Ayesha Jalal, “The Creation of Pakistan.” (OREAH) David Ludden, India and South Asia: A Short History, pp. 120-194. David Ludden, An Agrarian History of South Asia, Chapter Four, pp. 167-230. David Ludden, Imperial Modernity.
Reference
Wiley Online Library: Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. MAPS
Notes
Nov 18. Imperial Infrastructure, Mobility, and Cultural Space
Plantation economies, slavery, indenture, merchant networks, migration, and the global production of interconnected spaces of increasing cultural diversity. Migration Map. in Wiley Online Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration
Nov. 20. Empires and Nations: Inclusion, Exclusion, and Power Struggles.
Week 13
The Final Wars of Competitive Imperial Territorial Expansion: 1914-1945
REquired Reading
Articles on the region of your final paper in THE INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD WAR ONE. We expect to see the use of this reading in your final paper.
Assignment
Final Paper Prompt: Select news items about Asia today and tell us how what you’ve learnt about the history of Global Asia puts the news in new light. How does history help explain the present? Be sure to consider themes we have discussed in this course and history not just recently but over some span of the last 200 years. Consider one region in West, East, South, Southeast, or North Asia, focusing on details of trends with broader significance. We will discuss exemplary topics in lecture and discussion sections, but you are free to identify your own. One obvious theme would be the influence of empires and struggles over control of imperial territory in in and among nation states.
LAST 1-Page response paper DUE IN LECTURE TODAY. This is preparation for final 5-page paper. Describe the importance of WWI in one region of Global Asia.
Notes
Nov 25.The Turning Point: World War One. Mutual Self-Destruction in the Globalization of Territorial Empires and The Birth of Territorial Nations.
Nov 27 No Sections, No CLASS. Thanksgiving Break. Enjoy!
Week 14
Creating the World of Nations
Reading
Ludden, The Violence of National Territory
Andre Gunder Franke, ReORIENT : Global Economy in the Asian Age, Chap.7.
Ludden, “Empire Meets Globalization: Explaining Historical Patterns of Inequity in South Asia.”
Jomo Sundaram and Anis Chaudhuri, “Inequality and its Many Discontents.”
VIDEOs
Al Jazeera VIDEO on ROHINGYA Persecution.
Documentary Histories of the Emirates 2013 (52:00), 2017 (1:05), 2019 (TV miniseries — must get for NYU).
THE STORY OF CHINA. (54:00 Amazon Prime).
THE STORY OF INDIA (54:00 Amazon Prime).
Google “The Story of Vietnam” and all you get is US Vietnam War Stories.
THE STORY OF EGYPT (a series of 54 minute episodes) is all about Ancient Egypt.
Notes
Dec 2. Partition, Revolution, Cold War, Citizens, and Refugees
Dec 4. Neo-Liberal Globalization, the Rise of Asia, and Imperial Inequity
Week 15
How does Global Asia affect your interpretation of Headline News
Notes
Dec 9. Final Thoughts on Final Papers. Q&A
Dec 11. Final Paper Due in Recitation