This course approaches the history of West and East Asia from the perspective of a “long nineteenth century,” a term adapted (from Fernand Braudel) by Eric Hobsbawm to capture Europe’s experience between the French Revolution and WWI. Asia, too, experienced a long nineteenth century. However, hobbled economically and territorially by European interventions, Asia’s transformative century must be adjusted to capture the full scope and intensity of this period as its peoples rose up against imperialism, dynastic regimes were dismantled, cultures were radically altered and new polities emerged in the Ottoman Empire/Turkey, Qajar/Pahlavi Iran and Qing/Republican China. Seminar readings and discussions will explore this transition through different apertures, including in depth analyses of events and ideologies (Pan-Islamism, nationalism, communism) as well as comparative approaches to region-wide structural change, social movements, revolution, and world wars.
