History Commons^™

Making Opportunity Out Of Chaos: The Misconceptions And Realities Of Republican-Era Warlord Governance, Zachary Clark

Master's Projects and Capstones

Chinese history has largely been defined by a transition of power from one major imperial dynasty to another, separated by notable times of division such as the Warring States (475 BC-221 BC) and Three Kingdoms (220-280) periods. The early twentieth-century collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912 is no exception to this historical trend and gave way to a twelve-year period termed the “Warlord Era.” Dating back to the 1960s, Western scholarly discourse argued that these warlords lacked the ideologies or visons to implement any changes outside of their own personal and political interests. This research contends that warlords were …