HISTORY OF CHINA 2

This is one of the mandatory courses within the China curriculum of the Corso di Laurea in "Lingue, Culture e Società dell'Asia e dell'Africa Mediterranea" .
The course aims at offering the students a knowledge and understanding of modern and contemporary Chinese history, from the seventeenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. It provides the students with a basic capacity to analyze the question of modernity in China in its political, economic-social and cultural dimensions, allowing them to acquire the methodological skills necessary to understand and contextualize the transformation of Chinese empire into a modern nation-state from a global perspective.

Attending the planned learning activities and through the study of the reference material the students are expected to achieve the following learning outcomes:
1. Knowledge and understanding
● To know the periodisation and chronology of the Chinese history from the Seventeenth century to the early Twenty-First century.
● To know the main events, institutions, and personalities of the Chinese history of the period under consideration.
● To understand the long-term processes that characterise Chinese history from the late Empire to the Republican age from a political-cultural and socio-economic perspective.
2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
● To be able to contextualise the transformation of the Chinese empire in a State-nation also from a local and a global point of view.
3. Ability to judge
● To be able to identify the most influential features of Chinese history and at the same time increase a critical awareness of the ideological an cultural factors shaping historical interpretation.
4. Learning skills
● To be able to identify the main events and processes in Chinese modern and contemporary history from a spatial and time perspectives.

Students are expected to have a basic knowledge of the political, social and cultural history of the Chinese empire until the Seventeenth Century and a basic knowledge of global evolution in modern and contemporary age.

The last imperial dynasty.
Western colonialism in East Asia and China
The birth of the Chinese republic.
Sun Yat-sen and Chinese nationalism.
Social and cultural transformations in the first decades of the Twentieth-Century.
The Chinese Nationalist Party and its political hegemony.
The origins and development of the Chinese Communism. Revolution in China.
China in the Second World War.
The civil war.
The People's Republic of China: 1949-2001.
The People's Republic of China in the world: From the Cold War to the age of globalization.
The Republic of China in Taiwan.

Mandatory readings

Sabattini M., Santangelo P., Storia della Cina, Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2005 (1996) (only for the Qing period, chapter 8)

Samarani G., La Cina contemporanea. Dalla fine dell'Impero a oggi. Torino: Einaudi, 2017

Optional readings

Samarani G, Graziani S., La Cina rossa. Storia del Partito comunista cinese, Laterza, 2023

Further readings will be suggested in class.

The achievement of the learning outcomes will be evaluated in a written test consisting of questions with open and multiple choice answers. The written test has to be completed in 50 minutes.
The test will measure:
a) the student's knowledge of chronology, periodization and the main events and personalities of modern and contemporary Chinese history;
b) the student's ability to contextualize a given event, institution or personality in the time and space of Chinese modern and contemporary history;
c) the student's ability to identify and understand the main factors that have influenced Chinese historical processes and events in modern and contemporary age.
d) the student's knowledge and ability to understand critically the texts assigned in the bibliography.
The exam grade (max 30/30) will be determined by the sum of the scores obtained from the answers to the individual questions.

Lectures, with the support of PPT presentations.

The program is valid for students both attending and non attending lectures.

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