China's Last Empire William Rowe Summary

Thesis: During the Han Dynasty, techonogy was almost exclusively viewed positively, while in the Roman Empire, the attitude regarding technology varied.

Qin Shi Huang-Di has left a large impact on China, and by extension the world, that has lasted many years. Qin created the foundation of the Chinese country of today. Some scholars even believe that without Qin Shi Huang-Di, there would be no China at all (Gracie). Qin’s impact on the world was the creation of an entire country, a pretty impressive feat. Especially in his time, when nothing like China had ever been created before, his unification and reformation of China into a lasting country is inspiring. Qin is sometimes credited “with establishing the world’s first truly centralized bureaucratic empire” (Gracie). Furthermore, his format of a centralized bureaucratic empire would be the basis for many other empires and countries that would

European nations had a negative impact on China. European nations colonized parts of China. Rebellions were started in order to fight against European imperialism. Many nations gathered or came to China in order to gain or acquire something. Clearly, European nations had a negative impact on China.

The Han Dynasty in China and the Roman Empire shared many similarities and differences when it came to political rule and the nature of their political authority. The most significant difference between the two is how the Han dynasty enacted policies that were shaped to counter the wrongdoings of the previous Qin dynasty, whereas the Roman Empire enacted policies shaped to create and promote peace and stability. The difference in the two empire’s coming to power was to account for their variance in political rule.

In the book The Earth and its Peoples, Richard Bulliet describes the Han dynasty as “a tradition of political and cultural unity and continuity that lasted into the early twentieth century and still has meaning for the different China of our time (158). The Han Empire came into

The Qing, Mughal and Ottoman empires all had effective administration and victories that allowed them to advance. The Manchu, who ruled the Qing Dynasty, had to assert dominance to control the Chinese people living in the empire, who vastly outnumbered them. They successfully reoriented China after the rocky transfer of power following the previous empire, the Ming. The Manchu had “knowledge of Chinese administration” and a “well organized army” (Bingham, 134), which helped them effectively rule. They made Chinese men shave the front of their heads and wear their hair in long queues, or pony tails (Bingham, 136)” to show control. They made sure Manchu warriors didn’t lose their fighting edge in battle, which was a large part of their identity.

This kept the people of China from ever considering to standing up to their ruler. Whereas the people of India were able to live more lenient lives. Until the death of the ruler Qin it remained this way. The next dynasty was The Glorious Han Dynasty. The ruler of this dynasty was of peasant origin and was not as harsh as his predecessor. The ruler Han Gaozu changed many laws and polices and “promoted the welfare of its subjects”(p.81) unlike the ruler Qin. After the Han Dynasty there was not another great dynasty four hundred years later after the fall of the Han

Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo are both known for being the world’s greatest long distance travelers, however, because of their different backgrounds it had influenced the way in which each traveler wrote about their experiences in China. This contrast is dominantly believed to have been influenced by their different religious backgrounds, and how each had viewed the world. This was ultimately is influenced by ones cultural and religious background. In this essay I will examine the different experiences that both Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo had experienced during their visits in China.

The new themes of encounter and exchange did not come without the warfare, violence and confusion that plagued China as the Sung dynasty struggled to fight back against the Mongols. After the suicide of the last Southern Sung emperor, all of China was united by Mongol rule (Gernet 717). The tragic death of one man marked the beginning of a new era. For the first time ever, foreign people conquered the entirety of China. Never before had the Chinese government been completely replaced by an unknown system ruled by outsiders (Fitzgerald 181). The grandiose dynasty created by Kublai Khan was one of the best in the 13th century. As Marco Polo described it, “I repeat that everything appertaining to this city is on so vast a scale, and the Great

When the Qing dynasty overtook the Ming dynasty, they found there was much to be done in the Chinese Empire. In the Ming’s last years, taxes rose for peasant to help the government, but “the new taxes and duties provoked anger and discontent, which was aggravated by the poor economy and the dismissal of state employees, and finally resulted in insurrections (1627-1644),” (Ming Decline and Collapse 258). The Qing needed to fix the government and make their citizens pleased, before they could be sure their rule would last. The Qing emperors, such as Kangxi or Qianlong, went to work fixing roads and waterways, as well as lowering taxes. It was also known that most governments failed because of corrupt officials therefore, “resumption of the civil

As China grew with population and technologies, so did their government. Their military was weak but they had the idea to make iron and steel weaponry. The increase of weapons allowed the Chinese military to have more power over the people. Yet, the downfall of their era was their tactics in controlling their army and the rebellious citizens. As China’s economy and population grows, so does the growth of politics and Urban life styles. With the government ruling came the first Lady emperor to

It is often believed and taught that from about 300 BCE to 300 CE the Roman Empire was the greatest imperial power in the world and that it was the social, economic, and political center of world. This was also the period of the Chinese Han Dynasty, which was an equal, if not more, powerful empire in all aspects. The similarities of the implementation, spread, and establishment of the Han and Roman empires’ authority is what made them both successful and dominant in gaining, maintaining, and exercising the political authority they both possessed in the pre-modern world. BOTH EMPIRES WERE SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE OF THEIR USE OF MILITARY FORCE TO CONQUER, BUT BEYOND THAT THEY ESTABLISHED LAW AND ORDER BY EITHER SPREADING THEIR LAWS AND IDEALS

“During the Mao years, China’s suffering at the hands of others in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while never downplayed, was usually blamed on China's own weaknesses and specific evil regimes” (Fogel 43). The start of Fogel’s essay is intriguing, it is almost as he his telling a story of the history of this topic. About halfway through the work, Fogel changes topics and covers the subject of the opium wars. Fogel provides a brief history lesson about the opium wars, specifically on the Qing’s anti-opium legislation and on the “external ban” and “internal ban.” He refers to several other scholars at this point, ultimately restating and agreeing with

Imperial China was a superpower in the ancient world. China was governed by dynasties who gained power through warfare and maintained its superpower status through diplomacy. In China, governmental power was given to the emperor, who was thought to be chosen by the heavens, they were the top of the power hierarchy. Additionally, the emperor passed down power through their family. The chain of rulers from the same family came to be known as a dynasty and the history of imperial China is organized as so. (5)

The early Ming Dynasty was a period of cultural restoration and expansion. Under a series of strong rulers, China extended its rule into Mongolia and Central Asia. The Ming even briefly conquered Vietnam, which after a thousand years of Chinese rule had reclaimed its independence following the collapse of the Tang dynasty in the tenth century”(Duiker 336) .The Ming dynasty also known as the Empire of the Great Ming was described as of the greatest and famous eras that bought stability in human history. Emperor Hongwu born Zhu Yuanzhang (1368 -1398) was the founder and first emperor of the Ming Dynasty of China despite his lowly birth as the son of a hired laborer from one of the poorest parts of China”(Menzies 45). In the middle of the 14th century, with famine, plagues, and peasant revolts sweeping across China, Zhu Yuanzhang rose to command the force