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For some
time now I have been urging my colleagues in the Department of History at the
University of Colorado at Boulder to teach courses in world history.
Naturally, it was only a matter of time before I had to put my money where my
mouth was, so two years ago I inched toward the world field by offering a
survey-style lecture course entitled "China in World History."
That
approach permitted me to suit up in the life vest of my Chinese history
training for a maiden dog paddle in the boundless
ocean of world history. The benefits I gained from teaching the course,
however, went well beyond merely learning to stay afloat. What I realized in
the process was that, in addition to learning much about the regional and
global interconnections, symmetries, side effects and echoes that make the
world history field such a rich and illuminating one, I was also learning to
think about my own field, Chinese history, in fresh ways.
Putting
familiar subject matter in a new frame turned out to change the subject matter
itself. More clearly than before, I came to understand China as an
expansionary civilization, and the multiple peoples and cultures that
interacted with and helped shape Chinese civilization came into sharper focus.
So too did the precociousness of Chinese early modernity, the shaping effect of
certain features of that early modernity on European history, and the
extraordinary role that the engine of Chinese wealth played at the dawn of the
global age. Always a vast and exciting field, China grew even bigger and more
exciting when I thought and taught about it this way.
The
readings I assigned in that class, which seem to have been well-received by the
students, included: Kenneth Chase's Firearms:
A Global History to 1700; Robert Marks' The
Origins of the Modern World: Fate and Fortune in the Rise of the West; Wang
Gungwu's The Chinese Overseas: From
Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy; and Sasha Su-Ling Welland's A Thousand Miles of Dreams: The Journeys of
Two Chinese Sisters. I did not assign either of the two most profound
works in the field (at least for the early modern period)—Kenneth
Pomeranz's The Great Divergence: China,
Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy or R. Bin Wong's China Transformed: Historical Change and the
Limits of European Experience—owing to their density and difficulty
but did my best to communicate their basic findings through my lectures. The
next time I teach the class I will certainly assign Timothy Brook's delightful
and effective new book, Vermeer's Hat:
The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (see my review in
this issue).
I hope the
articles and book reviews in this special forum on China will be of use to
teachers as they prepare courses of their own on China in world history or on
world history from some other perspective. The selections here are varied and
rich. In "China's Southwestern Silk Road in World History" James A. Anderson
sheds light on patterns of trade and cultural encounter between China and the
states of South Asia via the little known Southwestern Silk Road, which in
addition to the far better-known Central Eurasian and Maritime Silk Roads
knitted the Eurasian world together before the modern age. In the next article
readers can stay with the Silk Road theme but jump to the contemporary world. In "Central Asia: The New Silk Road's Gordian Knot?" Alice-Catherine
Carls chronicles the bewildering changes occurring in Central Eurasia today as
the area again becomes central to the world economy owing to its rich oil and
natural gas holdings. The remaking of the Central Eurasian landscape that
Carls describes leads naturally to the next article, "Global Dimensions of
Modern China's Environmental History," in which Micah Muscolino provides a
valuable overview of the state of our knowledge regarding modern Chinese
environmental history, a subject that is poorly understood and very timely.
Finally, in "The Dark Side of Globalization: The Concentration Camps in Republican
China in Global Perspective" Klaus Mühlhahn argues and demonstrates that
globalization has entailed the spread of many horrific technologies, including
those having to do with the disciplining, punishing, and incarceration of human
beings. With the economic crisis deepening and spreading it is perhaps
appropriate to end on a sober note; even as it is clear that our global
interconnectedness offers infinite possibilities, at this moment it is quite
clearly leading to increased pain and impoverishment.
Timothy B.
Weston
University
of Colorado at Boulder
Weston@Colorado.EDU |
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