China: Traditions and Transformations (A Free Harvard Course)

Orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty’s Exten­sion School by pro­fes­sor Peter K. Bol, this course–entitled “Chi­na: Tra­di­tions and Transformations”–covers the fol­low­ing mate­r­i­al:

Mod­ern Chi­na presents a dual image: a soci­ety trans­form­ing itself through eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and social rev­o­lu­tion; and the world’s largest and old­est bureau­crat­ic state, cop­ing with long­stand­ing prob­lems of eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal man­age­ment. Both images bear the indeli­ble imprint of China’s his­tor­i­cal expe­ri­ence, of its pat­terns of phi­los­o­phy and reli­gion, and of its social and polit­i­cal thought. These themes are dis­cussed in order to under­stand Chi­na in the mod­ern world and as a great world civ­i­liza­tion that devel­oped along lines dif­fer­ent from those of the Mediter­ranean.

You can find the lec­tures in var­i­ous media for­mats on this archived page.

Chi­na: Tra­di­tions and Trans­for­ma­tions will be added to our col­lec­tion of Free Online His­to­ry cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.