The twenty-first century is already being called the Asian Century. What were the countries and peoples we call Asia like 100 years ago, at the start of the twentieth century? How did they change across the century? And how did this process influence their current prosperity and sense of national identity? The subject will survey the major social, political and cultural changes of the past 100 years of so, including European colonisation, the impact of the expansion of Japan and the Second World War, the rise of Asian nationalisms and the wars of independence, consolidation of national political regimes, economic development and modernisation, the rapid recent rise of China and India.

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