History
Paper instructions:
Choose ONE of the following items to answer. Please write a well-organized 900 to 1500 word essay with a persuasive thesis statement and clear argument supported with specific examples from course readings, especially primary source material (i.e. documents or quotations from the original time period rather than a modern historian’s description of events). Essay should be double-spaced and include citations from the reading [e.g. (Schoppa, p. 21), (Documents, p. 57)]
1) What did Lord Macartney want? What was the Qianlong Emperor’s response? How does the language in the diplomatic exchanges between Lord Macartney and the Qianlong Emperor reflect radically different world views? How did these differences lead to future conflicts including the Opium War?
2) Traditional Chinese historians believed that dynasties could lose Heaven’s blessing if they failed to govern morally and effectively. What were some signs in the documents that the Ming were slipping? How did the Qing consolidate their power after conquering China? How did the Kangxi emperor try to put a Confucian face on the raw power of the Qing regime in his Valedectory Edict?
3) How well did the Qing rule China? What criteria would you use to judge and what do the documents reveal about the Qing’s positive and negative influence on Chinese society and culture?
Key questions when thinking about your argument:
1) THESIS: Is the thesis a statement that a sane person could refute? Test by writing a counter-argument. “This essay will examine how the Qing conquered China” and “The Qing conquered China” are not thesis statements because no one can reasonably oppose them. “The Qing conquered China by shrewdly combining military force and diplomatic overtures to the Chinese elite” is better because someone could counter that the Qing weren’t that shrewd or that some other reason was more important in explaining the Qing conquest.
2) STRUCTURE: Is the topic complex and interesting enough to devote effort to writing about it and is it concrete and specific enough to be covered thoroughly in the space allotted? Covering the whole Qing conquest might be too much. Focusing on how they embraced Confucian language in their propaganda to win over the Chinese elite is something that can be covered in a short essay. Does one paragraph flow naturally to the next?
3) SUPPORTING EVIDENCE: Remember that you are trying to convince a hostile critic your explanation of an event’s cause or significance is logical and well supported by the available evidence so be aggressive with a persuasive argument and concrete supporting examples. Don’t just TELL readers that the Qing used Confucianism, also SHOW them with a well chosen quotation from a document that illustrates your point.
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