Dr Ronald Po

This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

How to apply: Students should write a short statement supporting their application to take a course. The Teacher Responsible will assign places on the course and their decision is final. Places will be assigned by midday on the Monday of week 1.

For queries contact: For queries, please contact the teacher responsible for the course, as indicated on the course guide. Staff e-mail addresses are listed at https://www.lse.ac.uk/International-History/People.

This course provides a critical overview of the history of Qing China from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, tracing political, institutional, cultural, and social continuities and changes, particularly in China’s land and maritime frontiers. Beginning in the Kangxi period, the Qing Empire became involved in an ever-growing network of commerce and cultural exchange, extending from Manchuria to Inner Asia, and from the East Sea to the Indian Ocean. Following the annexation of Taiwan in 1683, a series of events further connected China to the external world: the bloody suppression of the Lhasa riots in 1750, the infamous Dzungar genocide, European encroachment in Asian seas, the rise of port cities in Southeast Asia that were dominated by Chinese entrepreneurs, and increasing tension between China and Western powers over sea lanes and maritime boundaries. This course will use China’s shifting frontiers as a fulcrum to re-examine Chinese history in the modern era, factoring in the movement of people, commodities, ideas, cultural meanings, and imaginaries, which clearly indicate “China’s outwardness” and challenge the common perception of China as isolated and always inward-looking.

20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.
20 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.

One formative essay, 2000 words, in the Autumn Term.

Mark C. Elliot, Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World (New York: Longman, 2009).

Peter C. Perdue, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009).

John. E. Wills, China and Maritime Europe, 1500-1800: Trade, Settlement, Diplomacy, and Missions (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Robert Antony, Like Froth Floating on the Sea: The World of Pirates and Seafarers in Late Imperial South China (Berkeley, Calif.: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2003).

Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000).

Eric Tagliacozzo, Helen F. Siu, Peter C. Perdue, Asia Inside Out: Connected Places (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015).

Ronald C. Po, The Blue Frontier: Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Timothy Brook, Great State: China and the World (London: Profile Books, 2019).

William Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2009)

Presentation (20%).

Course participation (10%).

Essay (70%, 3500 words).