Introduction to Asian Civilizationsubcasia100.weebly.com/uploads/9/2/6/9/9269397/sept6.pdfyou will...

Introduction to Asian Civilizations

ASIA 100

From ancient times

Up to 1600

http://ubcasia100.weebly.com

Wednesday, September 5, 12

Class requirements

• What you need to do to get a good grade in this class

• ! a) attend all the lectures and participate in (not just attend) your discussion groups (We will use the iclicker to check on attendance)

• ! b) study at least two hours outside of class for every hour of class

• ! c) write your term papers yourselves: plagiarism is a serious offense and will be treated accordingly. We will be using Turnitin.com to check for originality and plagiarism.

• ! d) read the assigned pages of the textbooks before the lectures. You should keep in mind the questions on the lecture schedule while you are reading the textbooks.


Your textbooks

• On East Asia: Ebrey, Walthall and Palais, A Cultural, Social, and Political History

• On Southeast Asia: Lockard, Southeast Asia in World History

• On South Asia: Trautmann, India: Brief History of a Civilization

• On writing: Story and Jones, Writing History: A Guide for Canadian Students


Unifying themes

• The emergence of cultural clusters

• The emergence of states and empires

• The emergence of trans-regional trading networks

• The emergence of religions and philosophies

• The emergence of social hierarchies


Tutorial Sections

• In addition to coming to the lectures twice a week, you are also required to participate in a one-hour tutorial section/discussion group. (You must be registered for both ASIA 100 and ASIA L??)Those groups are led by one of the four teachings assistants for this class:

• Vincent Chan, Jeong-eun Park, Jee-Yeon Song, and Morgan York

• Get to know your TAs. They are serving as TAs for this class because they earned high grades in Asian Studies classes when they were undergraduates, and they want to help you do the same.


you will learn in this classA) the basic facts of Asian history from the earliest signs of human communities to around 1600.

Our focus will be on the emergence of distinctive civilizations, and what role regional and cross-regional interaction played in the way those various Asian civilizations evolved.

B) how to learn more in less time, and how to figure how which questions will appear on the exams.

C) how to think critically: that means you will learn

! 1) how to evaluate historical claims

! 2) how to draw conclusions from data and generalizations.

! 3) to view almost everything in this world along a historical dimension (defined by both change and continuity)

D) how to write a decent essay, one that makes and supports an argument. Wednesday, September 5, 12

The Regions of Asia• How do we define Asia? What are its constituent parts?

• South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan

• East Asia: China, Japan, North and South Korea, Taiwan

• Peninsular Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar (Burma). (Myanmar is grouped with Southeast Asia due to shared cultural traits, even though geographically it is a part of South Asia.)

• Island Southeast Asia: Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Timor-Leste

• Northern/Central Asia: Mongolia along with the peoples of the western regions of China and those with Asian ties living in the former Soviet Union. Tibet probably fits in here as well.


Questions for this lectureHow is “Asia” different from the rest of Eurasia?

What role has geography played in Asian history?

On the mainland of Asia, all of the earliest major cultures from South Asia to East Asia originated along river valleys formed by rivers flowing out of the Himalayas.

South Asia: The Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra rivers

Southeast Asia: The Irrawaddy, Salween, and Mekong rivers

East Asia: The Yangzi and Yellow Rivers

In maritime Southeast Asia, sea-going trade between China and India stimulated the emergence of cultures and states. Asian Civilizations as monsoon civilizations or vegetable civilizations. High population density= group oriented rather than individualistic


Diversity across Asia• Linguistic Diversity

Chinese, Altaic, Tibeto-Burmese,

Malay, Austroasiatic, Tai

Indo-European, Dravidian

• Religious Diversity

Buddhism, Christianity, Islam,

Hinduism, Confucianism, Folk Religions

• Ethnic Diversity Tamils, Sikhs, Malays, Tai, Vietnamese, Tibetans, Mongols,

Koreans, Chinese, Okinawans, Japanese, etc.


Commonalities across Asia

Are there any common elements across these ethnic, religious, and linguistic

divides?

• Buddhism [with some exceptions such as the Philippines]

• Indic and Chinese civilization intermingled in Southeast Asia.

• rice is an important part of the diet.

• More than half of the world’s population is categorized by Westerners as Asian

Do your textbooks treat Asia as one geographic, cultural, or political unit?


Asia In World Population History• Year Asia Europe former USSR Africa ! America Oceana ! World

• 400 BCE 95 19 13 ! 17 8 1 171 million

• 0! 170 31 12 ! 26 12 1 252

• 200 158 44 13 ! 30 11 1 257

• 600 134 22 11 ! 24 ! 16 1 208

• 1000 152 30 13 ! 39 ! 18 1 253

• 1200 258 49 17 ! 48 ! 26 2 400

• 1340 238 74 16 ! 80 ! 32 2 442

• 1400! 201 52 13 68 39 2 375

• 1500 245 67 17 87 42 3 461

• 1600 338 89 22 113 13 3 578


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