ASIA 1103 - Asia and the World

Asia's immense impact on the world over the last 2-3,000 years has often been obscured and is rarely part of Australian common knowledge. Asia and the World provides all students, but especially those doing International Studies and Asian Studies, with a basic introduction to notions of Asia. Many things which are taken for granted as being Western, often have their origins in the East in some way. This influence extends to language, hamburgers, philosophical ideas and ways of illustrating what we see. This influence is not limited to the ancient past. Today Asian pop culture is reshaping Western pop culture and ideas and products from Asia are changing our lives in fundamental ways even if the origins are not obvious. Asia and the World highlights the irony of how reactions to Asia shaped Europe's destiny and how its inventions and ideas have been adapted by Western states and often used to then dominate Asia in the colonial period. The contemporary rise of independent Asian nation states is reviewed and contextualised and the processes which obscure Asian influence are explained. Your view of why Australian/Western history and culture are the way they are may well change the way you see the world.