Comparing Early Modern Rulership and Ascription in the Qing, Russian and Ottoman Empires
Pamela Crossley - Collis Professor of History, Dartmouth College
In the early modern period (a deliberate term) overland conquest by large Eurasian empires produced forms which depended to some degree upon the generation of criteria of ostensible cultural identities and their ascription to real communities under imperial control. This talk examines the interaction of imperial legitimacy and identity narratives in the Qing, Ottoman and Russian empires. Pamela Crossley is the Collis Professor at Dartmouth College. She is a specialist on the Qing empire, but has recently published on global history, modern Chinese history, Liao empire history, and the histories of war, slavery and historiography in early modern China. Her most recent book is The Wobbling Pivot: China since 1800 (2010). The present research is part of a project on the origins of twentieth century identities in Eurasia; it has most recently been sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.