HIST4305IM Topics Studies in Modern World History:
Imperialism and Urbanisation: Asian Cities and Empires

The course surveys the role and effects of empire upon the historical evolution of cities and culture in Asia. To do this the course asks a number of fundamental questions: What made empires occur, grow, and fall? Why did cities have a crucial role in the development of empires? How did empires and their cities operate? And, how did Asian urban culture evolve under the dynamics of imperialism, and what legacies exist in cities today?

Using case studies from selected European empires, plus the Japanese Empire and American Empire, the course will introduce students to the construction of imperial rule in different regions of Asia. Encouraging learners to embrace concepts in Imperial Studies alongside the urban historical methods of culture and biography, students thus via focusing upon selected Asian colonies and cities will be able to not only appreciate why urban communities and civilizations in different territories evolved in distinct ways, but they will additionally assess counter-narratives to foreign hegemony. Consequently learners will deeply comprehend how and why political, cultural, legal, economic, and environmental matters interwove during the past and, as a result, shaped what is today ‘Modern Asia’.

During the course, learners will come face-to-face with various concepts, perspectives, and tools used by urban and imperial historians to explain the story of colonization in Asia, and will engage too with a range of textual and visual materials. As a result, students are afforded the opportunity to cultivate historical skills associated with the use of primary and secondary sources and, significantly, as members of a former colonial society more deeply recognize how the colonial past and postcolonial present interlink. Such awareness will assist students to possess a more comprehensive insight into the idea and framing of modern, independent nation-states in Asia during the early-21^st century.

Course Aims

The course is designed with particular learning outcomes. Upon successful completion of the program students will have the know-how to:

1. Comprehend the historical course of imperialism in Asia from its origins in the 1500s through to decolonization in the 1900s;
2. Evaluate the impacts of imperial rule within the frame of Asian cities, their development, and the evolution of urban culture;
3. Apply theories, concepts, and methods from Imperial History and Urban History so as to analyze, review, and synthesize knowledge about empires, urban places, and culture;
4. Develop a basic grasp of the historiography of empire and cities in Asia;
5. Articulate historical understanding and skills via the use of primary and secondary sources for spoken exercises and written assignments.

Lectures and Student Responsibilities

Students are required to attend all class functions and to arrive prepared for lectures. This includes arriving on time, having paper on which to record notes, listening attentively to the Lecturer, and, where possible, joining in any Lecturer-led discussions. 

The tutorials (4 in total) give students the chance to discuss in some detail the topics introduced in the lectures, and to help them sort out any problems in understanding that they may have. Time is also set aside to consider how industrialization has corresponded with changes in the broader world. Group activities shall be integrated into tutorial classes so that students can ‘do History’ but for tutorials to run effectively all students will be expected to have prepared beforehand, e.g. by reading and by thinking about the class topic in question. Materials to read shall be given by your lecturer each week and by consulting this course book. You also need to be prepared to join in the discussions within the tutorials: active learning is a basic of HIST4305IM But do not be afraid to ask questions if you are in doubt: by asking a question you may help others get a better grasp of the topic as well as well as helping yourself!

Required Readings

• Brian P. Farrell, Empire in Asia: A New Global History (2018)
• Anthony King, Colonial Urban Development (1976)
• Felix Driver and David Gilbert (eds.), Imperial Cities: Landscape, Display and Identity (2003)

Recommended Readings

Examples of texts to be used by the students pertinent to particular classes as the course unfolds include:

• Thomas Metcalf, ‘Imperial Towns and Cities’, in P.J. Marshall (ed.), British Empire (1996)
• William Beinart and Lotte Hughes, Environment and Empire (2009)
• Susan Parisj and Jim Masselos (eds.), The Great Empires of Asia (2010)
• Robert Home, Of Planting and Planning (1997)
• Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (1983)
• Peter Brooker, Andrzej Gasiorek, Deborah Longworth, and Andrew Thacker, The Oxford Handbook of Modernism (2010)
• Ho Pui-yin, Making Hong Kong (2018)
• Hubert Bonin, Asian Imperial Banking History (2015)
• Ashley Jackson, Buildings of Empire (2013)
• Alex Bremner (ed.), Architecture and Urbanism in the British Empire (2016)
• Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Contesting Space: Power Relations and Urban Built Environment in Colonial Singapore (1996)
• Laura Victoir and Victor Zatsepine (eds.), Harbin to Hanoi: The Colonial Built Environment in Asia, 1840 to 1940 (2013);
• Edward Denison and Guangyu Ren, Ultra-Modernism: Architecture and Modernity in Manchuria (2016);
• Carlos Quirino, Old Manila (1971);
• B.R. Pearn, A History of Rangoon (1939);
• Henco Bekkering, Adele Esposito, and Charles Goldblum (eds.), Ideas of the City in Asian Settings (2019);
• Gregory Bracken (eds.), Asian Cities: Colonial to Global (2015);
• Christopher W. London, Bombay Gothic (2002);
• Peter Scriver and Vikramaditya Prakash, Colonial Modernities (2007);
• Paul Rabinow, French Modern (1989);
• Fernando Nakpil Zialcita, Authentic Though Not Exotic (2005);
• David Cannadine, Ornamentalism (2001);
• Edward Said, Orientalism (1978);
• Anthony King, Urbanism, Colonialism, and the World Economy (1990);
• Tristram Hunt, Ten Cities That Built an Empire (2015);
• Raymond Betts, Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory, 1890-1914 (1960);

Papers published in a host of journals are also to be utilized as are primary sources available online, e.g. censuses, government reports, maps, photo archives, etc. These can be found at websites such as

• http://codesproject.asu.edu/sites/default/files/THE%20LAWS%20OF%20THE%20INDIEStranslated.pdf
• http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs22/1931_Census_of_India-Vol-XI-Burma1-tpo.pdf
• https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/old-macau?sort=mostpopular&mediatype=photography&phrase=old%20macau.

請注意大學有關學術著作誠信的政策和規則，及適用於犯規事例的紀律指引和程序。詳情可瀏覽網址：http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/。

學生遞交作業時，必須連同已簽署的聲明一併提交，表示他們知道有關政策、規則、指引及程序。

• 如屬小組習作，則所有組員均須簽署聲明；所有組員（不論有否簽署聲明及不論有否直接或間接撰寫有問題的內容）均須負上集體責任及受到懲處。
• 如作業以電腦製作、內容以文字為主，並經由大學「維誠」系統 (VeriGuide) 提交者，學生將作業的電子檔案上載到系統後，便會獲得收據，收據上已列明有關聲明。

未有夾附簽署妥當的聲明的作業，老師將不予批閱。

學生只須提交作業的最終版本。

學生將作業或作業的一部份用於超過一個用途（例如：同時符合兩科的要求）而沒有作出聲明會被視為未有聲明重覆使用作業。學生重覆使用其著作的措辭或某一、二句句子很常見，並可以接受，惟重覆使用全部內容則構成問題。在任何情況下，須先獲得相關老師同意方可提交作業。