Applying the Five Habits of Historical Thinking to Better Understand China,

Japan, and the West

Perry meeting the imperial

commissioners at Yokohama

Matthew Perry

A market in Edo, Japan, in the early 1800s

Salt gathering at Suzaki

Japanese prints of Perry's steamship (bottom), and his fleet and a map of the coast of Soshu (right)

The restoration did return all authority to Mutsuhiro, the Meiji emperor (right), but was much more than that. It was a way to

begin to construct a powerful unified nation-state that could rapidly undertake modernization.

Dr. Juichi Soyeda (left), of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of Japan and the Japanese American Society of Tokyo, and Tadao Kamiya, chief secretary of the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, on a visit to the U.S. in 1913

The Chinese port city of Guangzhou (Canton), 1900.

Until 1842, Canton was the main port at which foreign merchants were able to trade with Chinese merchants.

Imperial Palace

Confucius

Terraced rice paddies

A famine relief effort

China’s population soared in the 1800s, when famine and peasant

unrest became more common.

Modern battleship (in back)and Chinese junk

Europe moved rapidly ahead in technology and industry.

However, the British insisted on selling opium in China. It was one product they knew they could sell for the Chinese goods they wanted.

• First Opium War (1839–1840)• Second Opium War (1856–1860)

Two scenes from the Second Opium

War

Two scenes from one of the new treaty ports, Shanghai

That’s not an easy question to answer.

After all, the past itself is gone. All we have to go on is the historical record.

Primary source documents like these are one kind of record.

Yet they often leave out as much as they reveal.

Five Habits of Historical Five Habits of Historical ThinkingThinking

• History is not the past itself

• The Detective Model: Problem, Evidence, Interpretation

• Time, Change, and Continuity

• Cause and Effect

• As They Saw It: Grasping Past Points of View

Five Habits of Historical Five Habits of Historical ThinkingThinking

• History is not the past itself

• The Detective Model: Problem, Evidence, Interpretation

• Time, Change, and Continuity

• Cause and Effect

• As They Saw It: Grasping Past Points of View

““Why was Japan much Why was Japan much more willing than more willing than China China to adopt Western to adopt Western ways ways in the 1800s?”in the 1800s?”

““Why was Japan much Why was Japan much more willing than more willing than China China to adopt Western to adopt Western ways ways in the 1800s?”in the 1800s?”

How did each society view the West, its people, and ideas?

How did Japan’s ruling elites differ from those in China?

Did the two nations differ in how they had experienced the West’s impact?

Was the West more hostile or aggressive in dealing with eitherof the two nations?

How did each society view the West, its people, and ideas?

How did Japan’s ruling elites differ from those in China?

Did the two nations differ in how they had experienced the West’s impact?

Was the West more hostile or aggressive in dealing with eitherof the two nations?

“We should now order one-half of them [our scholars] to apply themselves to the manufacturing of instruments and weapons and to the promotion of physical studies… The intelligence and ingenuity of the Chinese are certainly superior to those of the various barbarians; it is only that hitherto we have not made use of them.”

Feng Kuei-Fen, 1850s

In 1900, an international force invaded China to free Europeans held by Boxer rebels. About half the troops sent to do this were Japanese. Here Japanese and British troops fight alongside one another.

“We should now order one-half of them [our scholars] to apply themselves to the manufacturing of instruments and weapons and to the promotion of physical studies… The intelligence and ingenuity of the Chinese are certainly superior to those of the various barbarians; it is only that hitherto we have not made use of them.”

A plant of the Mitsui Company, boiling cocoons and reeling silk, Maebashi,

Japan, 1905

Upper-class Manchu men, China, 1901Meiji Emperor of Japan,

reigned 1867–1912

“European demands for

indemnity payments

ruined China, not Japan.”

“Japan did not suffer the internal upheavals, famine, and chaos of China in the 1800s.”

“The Europeans were far

more interested in

controlling China and

carving it up.”

“China’s ruling Manchu elite was not popular and not able to unify China effectively.”

European Pressures Internal Problems

“European demands for indemnity payments ruined China, not Japan.”

“The Europeans were far more interested in controlling China and carving it up.”

“Japan did not suffer the internal upheavals, famine, and chaos of China in the 1800s.”

“China’s ruling Manchu elite was not popular and not able to unify China effectively.”

Five Habits of Historical Thinking

• History is not the past itself

• The Detective Model: Problem, Evidence, Interpretation

• Time, Change, and Continuity

• Cause and Effect

• As They Saw It: Grasping Past Points of View

Five Habits of Historical Thinking

• History is not the past itself

• The Detective Model: Problem, Evidence, Interpretation

• Time, Change, and Continuity

• Cause and Effect

• As They Saw It: Grasping Past Points of View

“The intelligence and ingenuity of the Chinese are certainly superior to those of the various barbarians; it is only that hitherto we have not made use of them.”

Feng Kuei-Fen, 1850s“Now that we are about to establish an entirely new form of government, the national polity and the sovereign authority must not in the slightest degree be yielded

to subordinates.” Kido Koin, 1868

“Ever since the Manchus poisoned China, the flame of oppression has risen up to heaven, the poison of corruption has defiled the emperor’s throne…”

Taiping rebels, 1852

Tasks ahead:• Interpret several primary sources

• Read and debate two secondary sources

•Draw your own conclusions about this past episode

Tasks ahead:• Interpret several primary sources

• Read and debate two secondary sources

•Draw your own conclusions about this past episode