Highlights
The following is a list of suggested essay topics. Many of these suggested topics will require narrowing, since your paper should focus on a single argument (thesis). You may investigate a topic of your own choosing, as long as you clear it with me.
1. What were the strengths of China’s civil service examination system? What were its weaknesses? Why was it abolished in 1905?
2. How did the opium trade affect Chinese society?
3. Why did the opium wars occur?
4. How did China conduct relations with foreign peoples and powers before the Opium Wars, and in what ways was this conduct of foreign relations transformed in the decades after the Opium Wars?
5. Did the creation of the Zongli Yamen represent a significant shift in the Qing approach to foreign policy?
6. What methods did Western missionaries use to “export Christianity” to China after 1800? What effects did these methods have in China?
7. Discuss the impact of Western missionaries on Chinese society in the nineteenth century. What were the consequences of missionary activity?
8. What were the causes of the Taiping Rebellion? Why did it attract so much support?
9. Why did the Taiping Rebellion fail?
10. The Taipings saw themselves as devout Christians. How much were they able to live up to their beliefs? Use either the behavior of specific individuals or specific types of conduct among the Taipings to support your argument.
11. How did the ‘Triads’ (or Heaven and Earth Society) influence the political situation in southwestern China during the early to mid-nineteenth century?
12. Why were Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zuo Zongtang able to suppress the rebellions of the mid-nineteenth century when the Qing government and its armies had failed? In order to narrow this topic, you may choose to focus on any one of these individuals.
13. The leading Chinese officials of the late Qing are often described as model Confucian officials: talented, dedicated, wise. Discuss the career of Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, or Zuo Zongtang, and evaluate whether your subject exemplified the ideal Confucian official or failed to meet this standard.
14. What was the self-strengthening movement? Did it achieve its goals?
15. Did Li Hongzhang’s leadership strengthen or weaken China in the decades leading up to the Sino-Japanese War?
16. Was the empress dowager Cixi the strong personality who held together a crumbling empire, or the self-interested leader who undermined it?
17. Why was the fate of Korea so important to both China and Japan in the late nineteenth century? Why did they go to war over Korea?
18. What factors shaped the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895?
19. Who were the ‘Boxers’ and what were their grievances? Why did they rebel?
20. How and why were the roles of women changing in early twentieth century China?
21. Why did the Hundred-Days Reform movement emerge and what was its impact?
22. Was Dr. Sun Yat-sen an effective reform leader? Why or why not? 23. Why did the Qing dynasty collapse in 1911? Or, alternatively, what were the causes of the Xinhai revolution in 1911?
This History 241: Humanities Assignment has been solved by our Humanities experts at My Uni Paper. Our Assignment Writing Experts are efficient to provide a fresh solution to this question. We are serving more than 10000+ Students in Australia, UK & US by helping them to score HD in their academics. Our experts are well trained to follow all marking rubrics & referencing style.
Be it a used or new solution, the quality of the work submitted by our assignment experts remains unhampered. You may continue to expect the same or even better quality with the used and new assignment solution files respectively. There’s one thing to be noticed that you could choose one between the two and acquire an HD either way. You could choose a new assignment solution file to get yourself an exclusive, plagiarism (with free Turnitin file), expert quality assignment or order an old solution file that was considered worthy of the highest distinction.
© Copyright 2026 My Uni Papers – Student Hustle Made Hassle Free. All rights reserved.