EMPIRES AND DIVERSITY IN EARLY CHINA

The story of empire-building in early China—and, by extension, much of Chinese history—has long been told through the narrative of unification. This course reconsiders unification through the lens of empire: a political formation that governed vast ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and regional diversity. Rather than treating the Qin and Han empires as successful projects of homogenization, the course examines how imperial rule depended on uneven integration and the management of differences. Through excavated manuscripts, archaeology, and comparative scholarship on empire, students will explore the tensions between centralizing ideologies and the diverse local realities of early China.