Chinese Revolutions: 20th Century Crises, Upheaval, and Renewal

With over 3500 years of written record, China, the “Middle Kingdom,” has the longest continuous history of any country in the world. Yet until the early twentieth century, Chinese dynastic rule followed a fairly set pattern. This course begins by tracing what led to the 1911 revolution that ended the Qing Dynasty and follows the establishment of the Republic of China, the Chinese civil war, and the revolution that led to the 1949 Communist Revolution. How did the subsequent challenges of the Great Leap Forward (1958-1962), the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), and other such programs lead, ultimately, to yet another dramatic break? How did this next upheaval put once-isolated China on the path to modernization and global prominence? This course also will examine the effect of revolutionary times on Chinese culture and society.