Japan In the Modern World: Visualizing Cultures

Japan: Black Ships, The Meiji Nation, and Imperialism

Doubleclick the image to go to a set of slides showing Western influence in Japan from the 1850s to the 1920s.

Many more images are available at the MIT site, Visualizing Cultures (click to go to the site).

This is a full strength public education project covering a wide range of topics in modern Japanese history. "Black Ships and Samurai," for instance, shows how the American Admiral Perry looked at Japan and how Japanese looked at him. Other topics include Japan's efforts to "throw off Asia," that is, to Westernize, and "Ground Zero 1945." Each has a scholarly essay and a wonderful set of images.

Wikipedia for Teachers and Students?

I've posted pieces on China Beat, Living with Wikipedia: It's Here to Stay, with Pt II, How to Improve Wikipedia, supplemented by Living with Wikipedia (China Beat) on Frog in a Well, which has further links and thoughts.

If you have ideas on the (ab)use of Wikipedia in the classroom, please add your comments at Frog or China Beat.

News Articles

In the right hand column of this page is "News Stories," which links to stories I have chosen for current interest.

Below that is a link to my Del.icio.us site, which has many more items -- but you have to work a bit to locate them. Look for the "tags," click the one you want, then you will get a list of the items I have marked.

China Beat: Five Sites for Lesson Plans and Teaching Materials

The new blog "China Beat" offers a range of opinion pieces on news, history, culture, and anything else that comes to their minds. The contributors are Los Angeles area scholars and graduate students.

The April 25 post is very useful "Five Sites for Lesson Plans and Teaching Materials" It lists and briefly describes the major national sites.

National Geographic China Issue

The June issue of National Geographic is a rich presentation of China -- pictures, feature stories... the whole nine yards.

National Geographic website has these features, plus a bunch of links to earlier articles, maps, puzzles, the whole ninety yards.

China and Tibet

The hot item in the headlines these days is the debate over Tibet, with demonstrations in Lhasa, Nepal, and Congress. The box to the right of this posting, "News Articles," has links to recent articles.

The box below has links and tags to the Del.icio.us social sharing website. You can 1) click the links in the box to go to an article or 2) go to the Del.icio.us site by clicking "My Del.icio.us." There you will have access to the several thousand websites and articles linked there; they are tagged by subject. In this case, try "Tibet."

Chinese Propaganda Posters

Stephan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Posters page is a major resource for any topic in post 1949 history of the People's Republic. Landsberger has arranged the posters by topic and supplied extensive explanations of the people, policies, and places involved.

For instance, "Population Policy" has colorful posters promoting sexual awareness (one of the few sources of knowledge on this topic for young Chinese!) and a quick explication of the development of the One Child Policy. "Zhou Enlai" has a brief but useful summary of Zhou's life. "Iron Women and Foxy Ladies" offers an incisive essay and insightful posters.

For most topics there are suggested readings and links for websites.