Ming & Early Qing China; Tokugawa Japan

Chapter 11 (China's Ming and Early Qing Dynasties)

1. Why did so many rebel groups adopt a non-Confucian religion?
2. In what ways did the Ming modify the Chinese administrative system?
3. Why did the Ming court decide to end its maritime voyages after China had asserted its dominance over the Asian seas?
4. What were the characteristics of Ming elite culture? How did Ming elite culture differ from that of the Song era?
5. What are the benefits and deficiencies of the rigid examination system implemented by the Ming?
6. Describe the Chinese economy in Ming times. Some have argued that there were ample foundations for capitalist development, especially in the late Ming era. What is the evidence to support such a characterization? What restrained its further development?
7. How can it be argued that, although the Ming tried to centralize their authority and standardize Chinese culture, Chinese civilization was still substantially decentralized? How is this specifically demonstrated in the development of Chinese popular culture?
8. What explains the tripling of China's population under the Qing?
9. What factors shaped relations between Manchu and Hang in the Qing times?
10. How do the reigns of Kangxi and Qianlong contribute to and demonstrate China's stability in the late eighteenth century?

Chapter 12 (Tokugawa Japan)

1. How did the Tokugawa political system that was based in family alliances differ from Chinese bureaucratic rule during the Ming and Qing? How did these different systems affect economic and political development?
2. Was Japan really "closed" in the Tokugawa period? What were the effects of the Tokugawa restrictions on interactions with the outside world?
3. In what ways did the Tokugawa shogunate develop Japan's political, social, economic, and educational infrastructures--the foundations for Japan's rapid modernization after 1869?
4. How did Japanese move from their prior feudal order to a more mobile society?