Printable Map • Maps of Chinese Dynasties: Ming Dynasty [The Art of Asia, Minneapolis Institute of Arts]
Color map showing land ruled by China's Ming dynasty relative to present-day political boundaries. Can be downloaded as a .pdf file.

• Confucianism in China 1587: Confucianism and the Succession Crisis of the Wanli Emperor, 1587 [Reacting Consortium]
Confucianism and the Succession Crisis of the Wanli Emperor seeks to introduce undergraduate students to the suppleness and power of Confucian thought as applied to issues of governance during the Ming dynasty.

Printable Map • Maps of Chinese Dynasties: Ch'ing (Qing) Dynasty [The Art of Asia, Minneapolis Institute of Arts]
Color map showing land ruled by China's Qing dynasty relative to present-day political boundaries. Can be downloaded as a .pdf file.

• Maritime Asia: War and Trade [Maritime-Asia]
In the 17th century, the Zheng network, based in Taiwan, and the Dutch East India Company were the dominant maritime powers in East Asia. Multimedia unit with visuals and lesson plans. Classroom Simulation Exercise: Pirates, States, and Diplomacy in a Multipolar Maritime Asia.

• Splendors of China's Forbidden City: The Glorious Reign of Emperor Qianlong [The Field Museum]
Online presentation of a 2004 traveling exhibition developed in cooperation with the Palace Museum in Beijing. With a video introduction to the exhibition, plus a gallery of images organized under the following topics: 1) Symbols of Power; 2) Effective Leadership; 3) Family Life; 4) The Private World of the Emperor; 5) Religion. Also a Q&A section with eleven commonly asked questions about Imperial China.

Maps • Recording the Grandeur of the Qing [Columbia University and The Metropolitan Museum of Art]
This interactive teaching unit gives the viewer unprecedented access to four monumental artworks of the Qing period — four of the twenty-four southern inspection tour scrolls commissioned by the Qing emperors Kangxi (r. 1662-1722) and Qianlong (r. 1736-1795), from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Topics discussed at length include: the postion of the Manchu Qing dynasty in China's history; the importance of water control; silver in China and the world economy from the 16th c to the 19th c.; the extent and variety of commercial activity in 18th c China; and the contrasting approaches of Chinese and European artists to representing perspective in space.

• Timeline of Qing History [PDF] [Peabody Essex Museum]

• Map of the Forbidden City/Imperial Palace [PDF] [Peabody Essex Museum]
This detailed map of the buildings within the Forbidden City give special attention to the area frequented by the imperial women.

• Focus on Neo-Confucianism for the World History Curriculum [World History Connected]
A brief introduction to neo-Confucianism — "the renaissance of Confucianism during the Song dynasty."

Wang Yangming, 1472-1529
Primary Source w/DBQs • Wang Yangming on the Unity of Knowing and Acting [PDF] [Asia for Educators]
Primary Source w/DBQs • The Identification of Mind and Principle [PDF] [Asia for Educators]

Yuan Huang, 1533-1606
Primary Source w/DBQs • Excerpt from Ledger of Merit and Demerit [PDF] [Asia for Educators]
Primary Source w/DBQs • Selections from The Twenty-four Exemplars of Filial Piety [PDF] [Asia for Educators]
Primary Source w/DBQs • Selections from Meritorious Deeds at No Cost [PDF] [Asia for Educators]

Yang Guangxian, 1597-1669
Primary Source w/DBQs • I Cannot Do Otherwise (Budeyi) [PDF] [Asia for Educators]

Zhang Xingyao, 1633-c. 1715
Primary Source w/DBQs • An Examination of the Similarities and Differences Between the Lord of Heaven Teaching (Christianity) and the Teaching of the Confucian Scholars [PDF] [Asia for Educators]

Also see Astronomy: The Jesuits in China in the Technology, Inventions, Science section, below.

Reign of Qing emperors Kangxi (r. 1662-1722) and Yongzheng (r. 1723-1735)
Primary Source w/DBQs • The Qing Dynasty "Sacred Edict" [PDF] [Asia for Educators]
Primary Source w/DBQs • Wang Youpu's Sacred Edict Lecture: "Exhortations on Ceremony and Deference" [PDF] [Asia for Educators]

Lan Dingyuan, 1680-1733
Primary Source w/DBQs • Excerpts from The Casebook of the County Magistrate Lan Dingyuan: “Depraved Religious Sects Deceive People” [PDF] [Asia for Educators]

Chen Hongmou, 1696-1771
Primary Source w/DBQs • On the Duties of an Official [PDF] [Asia for Educators]
Primary Source w/DBQs • On Substantive Learning [PDF] [Asia for Educators]

Lesson Plan + DBQs • Exchange of Goods and Ideas along the Silk Roads >> West-East Exchange: Astronomy [PDF] [China Institute]
Unit K from From Silk to Oil, a comprehensive view of the Silk Roads over four thousand years. "What was the importance of astronomy to the pre-modern Chinese state and people? How did the West-East exchange of scientific information along the Silk Roads affect China? Students will study pre-modern Chinese ideas on the relation of the cosmos to everyday life and the political importance of astronomy. They will look at phenomena such as eclipses and supernovae through both (modern) Western and (pre-modern) Chinese eyes."

Video Unit • "Easternization" (Not "Westernization"): Modernity Is a Global Formation” [Asia for Educators]
A video presentation with maps and visual images for students and teachers by Professor Sarah Schneewind of UC San Diego that argues that the inventions and ideas that originated in China are part and parcel of the modern West. (Sign-in required; registration is quick and free.)

• China's Contributions to the West [PDF] [Asia for Educators]
A comparative timeline tracking various inventions and ideas as they appeared in Chinese and Western histories. Covers many of the items mentioned in the unit Chinese Inventions: Can You Name Them? (above) and spans the period from 300 BCE to 1900 CE.

• Chinese Ideas in the West [PDF] [Asia for Educators]
In addition to material inventions that came to the West from China (discussed in the article China's Gifts to the West), Chinese "ideas" also influenced political and social development in the West. This article discusses the Chinese origins of and influence on: the civil service (see note below), alchemy and chemistry, agricultural methods, thought in the Age of the Enlightenment, Western literature, and Western political and economic theories.

• Tea Goes Global: Patterns of Migration, Trade, and Conquest in the Indian Ocean Over Time [DOC] [Indian Ocean in World History]
“While tea has been consumed in China for over 2000 years, it took many centuries before Europeans were introduced to this bitter beverage and learned to enjoy it, thanks to the addition of sugar. This lesson traces the history of tea (and tea-drinking accoutrements) within and beyond Asia, beginning in the Classical Era up through the 20th century. The tea trade changed not only economies but also social rituals. Even as Europeans adopted their own tea-drinking habits, they enjoyed drinking tea from imported Chinese porcelain teacups and teapots typically designed with cobalt blue patterns. Eventually Europeans manufactured their own chinaware with designs that looked Chinese – Chinoiserie – but due to differences in geography, Europeans could never produce tea or sugar in Europe. European dependence on imported tea had world-wide consequences.” A lesson plan developed by Joan Brodsky Schur for the Indian Ocean History website.

• The China Impact: Images and Ideas of China in the Dutch Golden Age, 1602-1721 [A Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization, University of Washington]
The image of China in Europe originated in the 17th-century Low Countries in which art and ideas interacted, affecting low and high culture. Dutch stereotypes of Chineseness are traceable in applied art from Sicily to Scandinavia and in scholarship from Paris to Saint Petersburg.

Previously Listed • Maritime Asia: War and Trade [Maritime-Asia]

Audio • The Trans-Pacific Silver Trade and Early-Modern Globalization [University of Texas]
With the establishment of Manila as a Spanish trading port in 1571, one of the most important economic links in the pre-modern world was established. Spanish silver flowed from the mines of Potosí (in modern Bolivia) through Manila to Ming-dynasty China. The interplay between these two empires created a global financial system that linked far flung parts of the world in a way that mirrors the 20th century phenomenon that has become known as "globalization."

• The China and Europe:What is Modern?” [Asia for Educators]
Resource featuring a map of the Silver Trade.

• The China Ship: the Beginning of Modern Globalisation [South China Morning Post/Multimedia]
Globalisation is thought to have its beginnings in the 16th century when the Spanish silver dollar went transcontinental. Its acceptance as common currency arose when Spanish navigators in the Philippines established a circular shipping route, known as the tornaviaje, between Asia and the Americas. More than 250 years of uninterrupted trade ensued between Asia and the rest of the world. And the ships playing this route were known as China Ships. A four-part multimedia unit, including: 1. The Discovery of the Round-trip; 2. Galleon of China: Flagship of Trade for Over Two Centuries; 3. Journey of Dread; 4. How Silver Changed the World

• Late Imperial China, Silver, and Global Trade Routes [Education About Asia]
"After the early fifteenth century, extensive European explorations marked the beginning of globalization. Vasco da Gama's sea route to India, Christopher Columbus's trans-Atlantic voyages to the Americas, and Juan Sebastián Elcano's completion of the first circumnavigation of the globe are examples of this process. European trade with the so-called "New World" also strengthened ties between China and the Americas. In 1581, the Sycee, a silver ingot currency used throughout China's late imperial period, became especially prominent in Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) tax reforms emphasizing payment in silver instead of in-kind taxes such as grain, rice, or labor. This resulted in the Ming and the subsequent Qing dynasties (1636-1911) becoming silver-based economies, thereby acting as a 'suction pump' for its importation even though the use of silver ingots declined in the latter Qing." Download PDF on page.

Lesson Plan • Timeline of Chinese Inventions [Asia for Educators]

• We All Live in the Forbidden City [China Institute]
An award-winning educational program about the history, culture, architecture, and life of imperial China as seen through the lens of Beijing's Forbidden City, one of the world's most fascinating landmarks. There are books, games, e-book apps, workshops, and a website - all designed for children. The site also offers guidance and resources for parents and teachers, such as lesson plans, common core guides, and additional educational resources.

• Homes [A Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization, University of Washington]
A Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization, prepared by University of Washington history professor Patricia Buckley Ebrey, is an excellent resource, with images, questions for discussion, timelines, maps, and suggested readings throughout. This particular unit examines how people constructed, decorated, and furnished their homes during the Ming, in order to gain a better understanding about the resources, aesthetic preferences, and social habits prevalent during that time.

• Gardens [A Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization, University of Washington]
A Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization, prepared by University of Washington history professor Patricia Buckley Ebrey, is an excellent resource, with images, questions for discussion, timelines, maps, and suggested readings throughout. This particular unit discusses the origins, design, social uses, and aesthetics of Chinese garden design, which reached its fullest development during the late Ming.

Primary Source w/DBQs • Selections from The Twenty-four Exemplars of Filial Piety [PDF] [Asia for Educators]

Lu Kun, 1536-1618
Primary Source w/DBQs • Preface to Models for the Inner Quarters [Asia for Educators]

Lady Chang's Letter to Emperor Shi Zong (r. 1522-1567), ca. 1566
Primary Source + Lesson Plan + DBQ • Official Petition to the Ming Emperor Shi Zong on Behalf of Shên Shu [Women in World History, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University]

Li Yü (Li Liweng), 1611-ca. 1680
Primary Source w/DBQs • "On Being Happy Though Poor" [PDF] [Asia for Educators]

Yuan Mei, ca. 1716-ca. 1798
Primary Source w/DBQs • "On His Chair-bearers—A Case of Misplaced Sympathy" [PDF] [Asia for Educators]

Li Ju-chen, ca. 1763-ca. 1830
Primary Source w/DBQs • "In the Country of Women" [PDF] [Asia for Educators]

• The Qing Dynasty (1644–1911): Painting [Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art]
A discussion of painting during the Qing dynasty, with a focus on three principal groups of artists working during the Qing: the traditionalists, the individualists, and the courtiers and professional artists. With 14 related artworks.

• Splendors of China's Forbidden City: The Glorious Reign of Emperor Qianlong [The Field Museum]
Online presentation of a 2004 traveling exhibition developed in cooperation with the Palace Museum in Beijing. With a video introduction to the exhibition, plus a gallery of images organized under the following topics: 1) Symbols of Power; 2) Effective Leadership; 3) Family Life; 4) The Private World of the Emperor; 5) Religion. Also a Q&A section with 11 commonly asked questions about Imperial China.

• Recording the Grandeur of the Qing [Columbia University and The Metropolitan Museum of Art]
This interactive teaching unit gives the viewer unprecedented access to four monumental artworks of the Qing period — four of the twenty-four southern inspection tour scrolls commissioned by the Qing emperors Kangxi (r. 1662-1722) and Qianlong (r. 1736-1795). Each of the four featured scrolls is displayed online in its entirety, with key details annotated by Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Maxwell K. Hearn. Five background essays by Dr. Hearn and Columbia history professor Madeleine Zelin serve as guides to the historical and artistic context in which the scrolls were created. Topics discussed at length include: the reigns of the two emperors who commissioned the scrolls, Kangxi and Qianlong, as well as key aspects of the Qing government, economy, and art.

Find more art-related resources for China, 1450-1750 CE
at OMuRAA (Online Museum Resources on Asian Art)