Step 4: Put It All Together

Now, take a step back and try to explain the big picture. Remember to use specific examples from the chapter in your answers.

Click here to download the exercise for Step 4 in MS Word.

INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

  • What motives underlay British efforts to shape India’s society and economy? What role did Indians play in implementing British policy?
  • Why was Siam able to resist colonization while much of the rest of Southeast Asia was not?
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CHINA AND JAPAN

  • Why was Japan so much more successful than China at resisting Western domination?
  • Argue for or against the following statement. “By the end of the nineteenth century, Japan had become, for all intents and purposes, a Western imperial power.”
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REGIONAL TRENDS

  • How did global economic and political developments influence Asian migration patterns in the nineteenth century?
  • How did conflicts between “modernizers” and “traditionalists” shape the development of Asian societies in the nineteenth century?
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LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD

  • How did Europeans’ desire to gain access to the wealth of Asia shape world history from 1500 to 1900?
  • What connections might one make between the events of the second half of the nineteenth century and role of Japan in regional and world affairs in the first half of the twentieth century?
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