Manchu China

For Monday's class, please read chapter 13 through p. 272, and be prepared to answer the following questions:

• What was the Manchu approach to ruling China?
• What elements of Manchu culture did the Qing retain?
• What advantages do historians studying the Qing period have?
• How did Europeans view China in the early Qing period? What was going on in Europe at the same time?
• What improvements did the Manchu's make, and what were the consequences?
• What were the Asian and European views of corruption and nepotism?
• What internal crisis did the Qing dynasty face and why? What was the White Lotus?
• Why didn't the Chinese have commercial and industrial revolutions like Europe's?
• Who used opium; how did they use; and why did they use it?
• Why did opium provide the occasion for the first military confrontation between China and Britain? 
• What was the outcome of the Opium War?