What is the traditional definition of modern; on what is it based?
How does the development of a civil-service bureaucracy in China around 1000 affect our understanding of modernity?
How does this traditional definition of "modern" affect the definition of "not modern"? How does it affect the traditional explanation of how places outside of Europe became modern?
How do Pomeranz and Wong use the congruence of politics and culture in nineteenth century Europe as an example of conjunction? How does the use of thinking in terms of conjunction give us more flexibility in our definition of what it means to be modern?
What has been the conventional way of interpreting the changes in nineteenth and twentieth century East Asia?
What developments associated with modernity occurred in China before Europe? What is the importance of this?