Throughout the 19th century, Japan simultaneously expanded its interest in its affairs beyond its borders, but also reaffirmed its fear and distaste for foreigners and foreignness (jōi). While many of our readings address individual aspects of this problem, we have engaged less with scholarship that examines wholly the variety of ways in which Japan engaged … Continue reading A Blessing and a Curse: Japan’s Relationships with the Outside World in the 19th Century

The Chinese government has, in modern times, had an exceptionally complicated relationship with its frontiers. Tim Oakes, in “Building a Southern Dynamo: Guizhou and State Power;” Max Woodworth, in “Frontier Boomtown Urbanism in Ordos;” and Scott Relyea, in “Conceiving the ’West‘: Early Twentieth-Century Visions of Kham,” all examine these frontiers in their various economic forms. … Continue reading Naught but Exploitation? An Examination of China’s Engagement with Its Frontiers in Three Provinces

Although the 50 years after the revolutions of 1848 are generally considered to be a time of great industrial progress for nations other than Britain (which had gotten a head start on industrialization earlier in the 19th century), the rate and results of industrialization in these nations varied tremendously. France, for example, ostensibly industrialized earlier … Continue reading The Ringstrasse and the Peasant: An Analysis of Modernization through Vienna and the French Countryside