It’s dangerous to reduce China to being just one thing – it is both ancient and modern, traditional and innovative. With a continuous history dating back 2,000 years, it is one of the most ancient nations on Earth today – and it is definitely complex.

For discussion: What makes a leader “great?”

The First Emperor

Qin Shi Huang (260–210 BC) was the King of the state of Qin (r. 246–221 BC) who conquered all other Warring States and united China in 221 BC. Rather than maintain the title of king borne by the earlier Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty from 220 to 210 BC. The title emperor (huangdi) would continue to be borne by Chinese rulers for the next two millennia.

Qin Shi Huang enacted major economic and political reforms aimed at the standardization of the diverse practices of the earlier Chinese states. This process also led to the banning and burning of many books and the execution of recalcitrant scholars. His public works projects included the unification of diverse state walls into a single Great Wall of China and a massive new national road system, as well as the city-sized mausoleum guarded by the life-sized Terracotta Army. He ruled until his death in 210 BC after a futile search for an elixir of immortality.

The Terracotta Army

The Terracotta Army or the “Terracotta Warriors and Horses” is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife.  It can also be regarded as a form of power projection – the means by which a government displays its authority, wealth, and overall strength, often sending a message to others about its priorities, goals, and values.

Each warrior was handcrafted – not from a mold – and displays subtle differences. They look like individual soldiers. (Xian, China, 2015.)

The figures, dating from approximately the late third century BCE, were rediscovered in 1974 by local farmers in Lintong District, Xi’an, Shaanxi province. The figures vary in height according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals. The figures include warriors, chariots and horses.

Estimates from 2007 were that the three pits containing the Terracotta Army held more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which remained buried in the pits nearby Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum. Other terracotta non-military figures were found in other pits, including officials, acrobats, strongmen and musicians.

The Mausoleum

In addition to the warriors, an entire necropolis built for the emperor was found surrounding the first emperor’s tomb mound. The earthen tomb mound is located at the foot of Mount Li and built in a pyramidal shape with Qin Shi Huang’s necropolis complex constructed as a microcosm of his imperial palace or compound.

According to the writings of historian Sima Qian (145–90 BCE), work on the mausoleum began in 246 BCE soon after Emperor Qin (then aged 13) ascended the throne. The project eventually involved 700,000 workers.

Construction

The terracotta army figures were manufactured in workshops by government laborers and local craftsmen using local materials. Heads, arms, legs, and torsos were created separately and then assembled.  Eight face molds were most likely used, with clay added after assembly to provide individual facial features. It is believed that the warriors’ legs were made in much the same way that terracotta drainage pipes were manufactured at the time. This would classify the process as assembly line production, with specific parts manufactured and assembled after being fired, as opposed to crafting one solid piece and subsequently firing it.

In those times of tight imperial control, each workshop was required to inscribe its name on items produced to ensure quality control. This has aided modern historians in verifying which workshops were commandeered to make tiles and other mundane items for the terracotta army. Upon completion, the terracotta figures were placed in the pits in precise military formation according to rank and duty.

The terracotta figures are life-sized. They vary in height, uniform, and hairstyle in accordance with rank. Most originally held real weapons such as spears, swords, or crossbows. Originally, the figures were also painted with bright pigments, variously colored pink, red, green, blue, black, brown, white and lilac.  The colored lacquer finish, individual facial features, and weapons used in producing these figures increased the figures’ realism. Most of the original weapons were looted shortly after the creation of the army, or have rotted away, while the color coating flaked off or greatly faded.

The Forbidden City

For Discussion: How and why do governments regulate the flow of people and information?

The Great Wall

An Epic National Project

The history of the Great Wall of China began when fortifications built by various states during the Spring and Autumn (771–476 BC) and Warring States periods (475–221 BC) were connected by the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, to protect his newly founded Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) against incursions by nomads from Inner Asia. The walls were built of rammed earth, constructed using forced labor, and by 212 BC ran from Gansu to the coast of southern Manchuria.

Later dynasties adopted different policies towards northern frontier defense. The Han (202 BC – 220 AD), the Northern Qi (550–574), the Sui (589–618), and particularly the Ming (1369–1644) were among those that rebuilt, re-manned, and expanded the Walls, although they rarely followed Qin’s routes. The Han extended the fortifications furthest to the west, the Qi built about 990 miles of new walls, while the Sui mobilized over a million men in their wall-building efforts. Conversely, the Tang (618–907), the Song (960–1279), the Yuan (1271–1368), and the Qing (1644–1911) mostly did not build frontier walls, instead opting for other solutions to the Inner Asian threat like military campaigning and diplomacy.

The Great Wall stretches from Dandong in the east, to Lop Lake in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. A comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has concluded that the Ming walls measure 5,500 miles. This is made up of 3,889 miles sections of actual wall, 223 miles of trenches and 1,387 miles of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers. Another archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measure out to be 13,171 miles.

Although a useful deterrent against raids, at several points throughout its history the Great Wall failed to stop enemies, including in the Yuan – lead by Kublai Khan – in 1271 and in 1644 when the Manchu Qing marched through the gates of Shanhai Pass and replaced the most ardent of the wall-building dynasties, the Ming, as rulers of China.

The Great Wall of China visible today largely dates from the Ming dynasty, as they rebuilt much of the wall in stone and brick, often extending its line through challenging terrain. Some sections remain in relatively good condition or have been renovated, while others have been damaged or destroyed for ideological reasons, deconstructed for their building materials, or lost due to the ravages of time. Long an object of fascination for foreigners, the wall is now a revered national symbol and a popular tourist destination.

Other purposes of the Great Wall have included border controls, allowing the imposition of duties on goods transported along the Silk Road, regulation or encouragement of trade and the control of immigration and emigration. Furthermore, the defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were enhanced by the construction of watch towers, troop barracks, garrison stations, signaling capabilities through the means of smoke or fire, and the fact that the path of the Great Wall also served as a transportation corridor.

Characteristics

Before the use of bricks, the Great Wall was mainly built from rammed earth, stones, and wood. During the Ming, however, bricks were heavily used in many areas of the wall, as were materials such as tiles, lime, and stone. The size and weight of the bricks made them easier to work with than earth and stone, so construction quickened. Additionally, bricks could bear more weight and endure better than rammed earth. Stone can hold under its own weight better than brick, but is more difficult to use. Consequently, stones cut in rectangular shapes were used for the foundation, inner and outer brims, and gateways of the wall.

Battlements line the uppermost portion of the vast majority of the wall, with defensive gaps a little over 30 cm (12 in) tall, and about 23 cm (9.1 in) wide. From the parapets, guards could survey the surrounding land. Communication between the army units along the length of the Great Wall, including the ability to call reinforcements and warn garrisons of enemy movements, was of high importance. Signal towers were built upon hill tops or other high points along the wall for their visibility. Wooden gates could be used as a trap against those going through. Barracks, stables, and armories were built near the wall’s inner surface.

Condition

While some portions north of Beijing and near tourist centers have been preserved and even extensively renovated, in many locations the Wall is in disrepair. Those parts might serve as a village playground or a source of stones to rebuild houses and roads. Sections of the Wall are also prone to graffiti and vandalism, while inscribed bricks were pilfered and sold on the market for up to 50 renminbi. Parts have been destroyed because the Wall is in the way of construction. A 2012 report by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage states that 22% of the Ming Great Wall has disappeared, while 1,219 miles of wall have vanished.More than 37 mile of the wall in Gansu province may disappear in the next 20 years, due to erosion from sandstorms.

The Great Firewall

Modern China is a one party state – a country ruled by one authoritarian Communist Party that carefully limits dissent, protest, and alternative points of view.  In fact, the Chinese government has a tradition of keeping its watchful eye on all media. Since the rapid growth of the World Wide Web in the 1990s it has constantly invented new ways of censorship to control the world’s most democratic medium, the Internet, as well. Not everything on the Internet can be accessed from within China.  The sophisticated tools used by the government to block websites that might embarrass or weaken the party are referred to as the Great Firewall of China.

It is estimated that some 30,000 Chinese civil servants are monitoring Internet traffic and blocking content that is deemed undesirable. Typing in sensitive keywords such as “democracy”, “Dalai Lama” or “Tiananmen 1989” in a search engine results in an error message. Repeated attempts by a user to search for such a sensitive topic can result in temporary disconnection of internet service.  Websites of a sensitive nature are blocked. Internet service providers also (self) censor, as do individuals: many people do not express their real thoughts because they know these will be censored anyway.

Sites Blocked in China

For Discussion: In what ways is the Great Firewall similar in function to the Great Wall?  In your opinion, do you think this strategy will work in the long term?

Ancient World History: An Open Ended History is a free online history textbook adapted and expanded upon from open sources. It is an attempt to develop a middle school world history course that is truly expansive – a true world history, in other words. While it examines historical events and figures, its approach is cultural and thematic.  The text does not aim to be strict chronology of the world – rather, it is a primer for the student who is not a specialist in history.  A primer for being a semi-informed citizen of the world. As such, it features many “digressions” into societies and cultures that don’t always make the cut in conventional textbooks. 

Who’s interested in supporting this project? If you’d like to become a contributor, please click here.

Early Humans

• What Is It That Makes Humans Unique? (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): Read about some of the characteristics that distinguish humans from other life on Earth.
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  ACTIVITY: Interpreting Paleolithic and Neolithic Culture: Students try their hand at interpreting examples of paleolithic art from around the globe.
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  ACTIVITY: Come Join the Neolithic Revolution: Students create an advertisement recruiting paleolithic peoples to adopt the neolithic way of life.
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This lesson was reported from:

Chefchaouen is a small town of about 45,000 people. It is located in Morocco’s Rif Mountains. Chefchaouen is not wholly dissimilar to a number of other towns scattered throughout this rocky region – except that this ancient settlement looks like it was made for Instagram. Many of its buildings, many of its streets – most of its visible surfaces – are painted in vivid shades of blue.

What’s going on here?

Chefchaouen was originally founded in 1471 CE. At the time, it was known simply as Chaouen, which loosely translates as “The Peaks” in Arabic, a reference to the tall, foreboding mountainside onto which the fortified settlement was built. In these hardscrabble early days, the humble village served as a base for a fierce Berber resistance against the recent Portuguese invasion of North Africa.

In this defiant effort, the inhabitants of Chaouen were moderately successful. The remote village was never directly conquered by any European power. Chaouen would remain free and independent into the twentieth century, even as much of the rest of the nation came under foreign control. The disclaimer attached to this impressive four hundred year record is, of course, that despite the best efforts of Chaouen’s freedom fighters, no amount of Berber resistance would ever repel a European power from Morocco by force.

This humble reality was a sudden reversal of fortunes for the proud people of Morocco.

Morocco’s great dynasties, in decline by the time of Chaouen’s fifteenth century founding, offer one of the few examples in world history of a non-European power colonizing Europe instead of the inverse.

Beginning around 700 CE, successive Moroccan empires had been the dominant force in western Mediterranean world. Moroccan emperors ruled over the Iberian Peninsula, which includes modern Spain and Portugal. This long reign ensured a strong and lasting Moroccan influence in the language, art, and architecture of the Iberian Peninsula – but also a deep-seated resentment for its Islamic conquerors. The Christian peoples of Spain and Portugal fought a century-long struggle to liberate themselves from Moroccan dominance.

Their zeal also included often violent purges of any non-Christian people left behind in the wake of Morocco’s retreat.

In 1492, Chaouen received a tide of Jewish and Muslim refugees, expelled by royal decree from a newly-unified and fiercely Christian Spain.

This traumatic arrival would transform Chaouen for all time. You can force a people from their homeland, but they will always carry that homeland with them in their language, their architecture, and in their hearts.

Previously, Chaouen had been a small military enclave – homogeneous and reflective of a proud Berber heritage. Suddenly it was a cosmopolitan blend of Maghreb (the Arabic name for North Africa) and Andalusia (the Arabic name for the Iberian Peninsula). The new refugees built their homes in the Spanish style – with tiled roofs, centered around open courtyards, designed to accommodate extended families in communal spaces. The newcomers continued to speak a form of Spanish that would persist – increasingly blended with Berber and Arabic – until the modern day.

Despite this new diversity, mistrust of the outside world only intensified in Chaouen. For centuries afterward, Christians were banned upon punishment of death from entering the walled city – a lingering, telling example of how traumatic acts of prejudice can be cyclical for generations, long after the original wrong has faded from living memory…

The ancient walls of Chefchaouen predate the city’s love affair with the color blue. They served admirably to keep the kasbah free and independent from foreign power for centuries, while providing a safe haven for Jewish and Muslim refugees fleeing violence and persecution in Christian Spain.

The ancient walls of Chefchaouen predate the city’s love affair with the color blue. They served admirably to keep the kasbah free and independent from foreign power for centuries, while providing a safe haven for Jewish and Muslim refugees fleeing violence and persecution in Christian Spain.

In 1912, during the final decades of the European colonial scramble, Morocco fell decisively under the dominion of France and Spain. It was a prize divided by mutual agreement in order to keep a third rival, Germany, out of North Africa. Unfortunately, this arrangement was devised with no input from the Moroccan king or his people. After nearly five hundred years, the long, falling arc from mighty empire to dependent colony was complete.

By virtue of this European treaty, Spain would control the northern swath of the country that included Chaouen. Spanish soldiers occupied the town during much of this colonial period. They were reputedly the first Christians to enter this fiercely-independent town, and they remained, with one exception, until 1956.  During the 1920s, the Spaniards would be forced to withdraw when Berber rebels, once again based in Chaouen and its surrounding environs, launched the Rif War, a hard-fought but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to claim self-rule for their homeland.

It was after this failed rebellion, for reasons lost to history, that the town – previously a nondescript Moroccan adobe, accented with splashes of Islamic green like so many other mountain towns – adopted its distinctive, omnipresent blue palette. Some tour guides speculate that this new color scheme represented the clear, cloudless sky that hangs like a dome over this arid country. Others suggest that blue, a color with strong ties to Judaism, is symbolic of the many descendants of the 1492 refugees who still adhere to that faith.

In the medina of Chefchaouen, residents have cultivated a vast, interwoven web of grape vines that grow overhead. The grapes can be eaten or turned into wine; their leaves provide fresh air and shade, and can also be eaten.

Since there are few-to-no vehicles in the medina, the streets are designed for human traffic – stairways are common in mountain towns.

A small public mailbox serves the neighborhood.

Electrical wires, added long after these ancient cities were originally built, are often run directly alongside buildings, or buried beneath the streets alongside waterlines.

In Morocco, house painting is a traditionally feminine activity. So, we are left to wonder, who was the first resident of Chefchaouen to paint her house blue? And who was the first neighbor to say, “Hey, that looks pretty good – I’m going to do that, too!”

We’ll never know, but this mountaintop wave of blue was a viral trend that anticipated social media by a hundred years.

The only thing that we know for certain is that the bold blue wash is an accurate representation of the town’s independent spirit. Chefchaouen looks different from any other city in the world, and maybe that’s the point.

Chefchaouen, a town that at first glance seems to have arisen in some other, more magical, more whimsical world than our own, has become an unlikely tourist destination. In the twenty-first century, the town’s idiosyncratic color has brought the town an out-sized fame among travelers from as far away as the United States and China.

A town founded on resistance to the foreign occupation of Morocco now welcomes hundreds of thousands of foreigners every year.

These tourists, enchanted by the town’s singular beauty, sleep in Chefchaouen’s hotels, eat in its restaurants, and spend money in its shops. They are the dominant force supplying the town with a degree of wealth well beyond that of many similar-sized Moroccan communities.

Violence in Chefchaouen is a thing of the past. But it’s an open question as to whether a few hundred cans of blue paint, tastefully applied, won the centuries-long contest for Morocco’s Rif Mountains – or simply opened the latest chapter in the saga.

THIS LESSON WAS MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH A GENEROUS GRANT FROM THE QATAR FOUNDATION.

“I have asked myself many times: Is the Filipino worth suffering, or even dying, for? Is he not a coward who would readily yield to any colonizer, be he foreign or homegrown? Is a Filipino more comfortable under an authoritarian leader because he does not want to be burdened with the freedom of choice? Is he unprepared, or worse, ill-suited for presidential or parliamentary democracy?

I have carefully weighed the virtues and the faults of the Filipino and I have come to the conclusion that he is worth dying for because he is the nation’s greatest untapped resource.” – Ninoy Aquino

Find out why Ninoy said, “The Filipino is Worth Dying For” in Ninoy and Marcos – “A Pact with the Devil is No Pact at All.”

This lesson is a part of a larger unit on the Philippines, free for use in your classroom: At the Crossroads of the World.  

• Islands in a Friendly Sea: Some Basics of Filipino History and Culture (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): Who are the Filipinos?  What is their history and culture?  How has it been shaped by island geography?  By contact with the outside world?
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• Manila at the Crossroads of World Trade (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): For more than three centuries, Manila was one of the crown jewels of the Spanish Empire, sitting at the intersection of global trade between Asia, the Americas, and Europe.  How did this global trade shape the Philippines – and how did the Philippines shape global trade?
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• The Origins of the Philippine-American War (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): How did the Filipinos gain independence from Spain, only to have it snatched away by their alleged ally, the United States?  How does this experience resonate in both Philippine and U.S. history?
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• The Brutality of the Philippine-American War (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): Why was the Philippine-American War so violent?  Did this violence help or hinder the goals of each side?  Should there be rules that govern the conduct of war?
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• The Philippines in the American Empire (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): After nearly 400 years, how did independence finally come to the Philippines?  Was the United States conquest of the Philippines an anomaly in its history, or was it business as usual?
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• “The White Man’s Burden”: Kipling’s Hymn to U.S. Imperialism (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): Full text of this imperialist poem, as well as an answer in the form of an anti-imperialist parody.
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• Stereoscopic Visions of War and Empire (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): This exhibit juxtaposes the visual message presented by the stereoscopic images with excerpts from the letters written by U.S. soldiers that were first published in local newspapers and later collected in the Anti-Imperialist League’s pamphlet, allowing us to get a glimpse of the Philippine-American War as it was presented to Americans at home, reading the news or entertaining friends in their parlors.
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• In The Trenches: Harper’s Weekly Covers the Philippine-American War (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities):  How did the American media cover the war in the Philippines?  An excerpt from “In The Trenches” by John F. Bass, originally published in Harper’s Weekly.
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• Ninoy and Marcos – “A Pact with the Devil is No Pact at All.” (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities):  Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Cory Aquino, and the People Power Revolution toppled the kleptocratic Marcos regime through nonviolence, answering with their lives the question, “Is the Filipino worth dying for?”
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