After 1760, an increasing portion of the Qing frontier abutted areas in which the British and Russian empires exerted direct or indirect influence. This talk, concentrating primarily on the case of India, examines the bureaucratic, strategic, and intellectual challenges posed for the Qing state by the expansion of its rivals. In particular, it considers how a government that had been accustomed to managing a diverse and fragmented borderland adapted to the fact that the activities of other empires, evident across widely separated and non-contiguous regions, formed part of an increasingly integrated web of imperial competition.

Matthew W. Mosca received his PhD in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University in 2008. He is currently assistant professor in the Lyon G. Tyler Department of History at the College of William and Mary. In the 2013-2014 academic year he holds a Mellon Fellowship for Assistant Professors at the School of Historical Studies, Institute of Advanced Study.

This presentation is co-sponsored by the U-M Center for South Asian Studies, organizer of the Winter Term 2014 LSA Theme Semester “India in the World.” For more information, please contact their center at 734-615-4059; csas@umich.edu ; or access their website at: www.ii.umich.edu/csas.