Describe the role played by trade in the history of Sino-European relations

Question:Describe the role played by trade in the history of Sino-European relations from Yuan times to the Opium Wars.In your answer you should consider both the commodities that were traded and the merchants who engaged in the trade.

Your answers should be thoughtful, well organized, clearly written, and demonstrate a command of the material covered in the readings and lectures. The questions have been designed to be answered on the basis of the required readings for the course;

In writing your essays, please give as much supporting detail as you can from the writings that you are discussion. For class books that you use, quotations and specific references should be cited a parenthetical citation identifying the source and with page number.

A word of warning. The questions are intentionally broad, and I am sure that some of you could go on at great length in answering any of them. The challenge in that case is to compress what you know into something close to five pages, making your points and supporting them with pertinent historical details.

******You must choose at least two books from the following books******

Jonathan Spence, The Question of Hu.*** (must choose this book)***.

Christopher Dawson, Mission to Asia.

John Gregory, China and the West Since 1500

David Mungello, The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800.

Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, Ronald Latham, trans.

Morris Rossabi, Voyager from Xanadu: Rabban Sauma and the First Journey from China to the West.

Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History