Download Seminar World History Homework

Seminar World History Homework
May 2, 2008
**Due Friday, May 9, 2008**
Read Chapter 10, “From the Tang to the Mongols: The Flowering of Traditional China”
(266-291)
Focus Questions:
1) How did Chinese historians traditionally view Chinese history, and has this view
of China’s past been challenged in any ways?
2) What major changes in political structures and social and economic life occurred
during the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties?
3) Why were the Mongols able to amass an empire, and what were the main
characteristics of their rule in China?
4) What roles did Buddhism, Daoism and Neo-Confucianism play in Chinese
intellectual life in the period between the Sui dynasty and the Ming?
5) What were the main achievements in Chinese literature and art in the beriod
between the Tang dynasty and the Ming, and what technological innovations and
intellectual developments contributed to these achievements?
Read Chapter 17, “The East Asian World” (488-502, the part about China only)
Focus Questions:
1) Why were the Manchus so successful at establishing a foreign dynasty in
China, and what were the main characteristics of their rule?
2) How did the economy and society of China change during the Ming and Qing
eras, and to what degree did these changes seem to be leading toward an industrial
revolution on the Western model?
**No ID terms for this assignment. Focus on the “big ideas” and answer these focus
questions completely.**