The Self-Strengthening Movement: Too Little Too Late?

08/12/19 • 25 min

This episode focuses on the 1862-1895 period, when the Empress Dowager Cixi ruled and reformers tried to make China strong enough to stand up to foreign powers by modernizing the military and promoting 'new learning.' Also, a few words on the surge in overseas Chinese migration during this time, and its relationship to revolutionary nationalist movements to overthrow the Qing Empire.
The books that I quote from in the episode are:
Zheng Yangwen, Ten Lessons in Modern Chinese History (https://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719097737/)
Stephen Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/131825/autumn-in-the-heavenly-kingdom-by-stephen-r-platt/9780307472212/)

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08/12/19 • 25 min

People's History of Ideas Podcast - The Self-Strengthening Movement: Too Little Too Late?

Transcript

Welcome to the People’s History of Ideas Podcast, episode 5. In this episode we’ll be talking about some major trends during the three decades following the end of the Taiping Civil War.

After the British and French occupied Beijing during the Second Opium War and the forces led by Zeng Guofan against the Taiping revolutionaries were greatly aided in their victory by British ships and guns, it had become clear to a new generation of Chinese reformers that it was going to be necessary

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