Prerequisite
ENG 100/101
Course Description
China has existed and expanded as a unified cultural and political entity with relatively brief interregnums between dynasties/regimes since the fourteenth century. It is during this unprecedented era of unity that China's first direct contacts with the West occurred, and these have had a great influence on how China and its citizens perceive themselves. Emphasis shall be placed on an understanding of the continuing impact of the Opium Wars during the nineteenth century, WWI and WWII in Asia, and the Civil War between the Communist and National parties from the 1920s to the 1940s. Also of key importance is an understanding of the influence of the importation of Western ideas with regards to ideas about nationalism, democracy, science, evolution, and Marxism-Leninism, as well as literature and culture in general during this period.