Alan T. Wood

Professor Emeritus

Ph.D. History, University of Washington

Recipient of the University of Washington Bothell Distinguished Teaching Award, 2004

Email: awood@uw.edu

Teaching

The Roman orator and philosopher Cicero once wrote that “historia magistra vitae”-history is the teacher of life. In teaching Chinese history and world history, I have three goals: 1) to cultivate wisdom as well as knowledge; 2) to understand the present by learning from the past experience of others; and 3) to become more aware of the global dimensions of all human activity.

Recent Courses Taught

BIS 268 World History to 1500
BIS 269 World History after 1500

Research/Scholarship

My teaching has concentrated on traditional and modern China, and on world history.

Selected Publications

• “Confucian Democracy in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective,” in Confucianism for the 21st Century (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2023).
• “Confucianism and Social Structure,” Oxford Handbook on Confucianism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023).
• Fire, Water, Earth, and Sky: Global Systems History and the Human Prospect,” Journal of the Historical Society (September 2010).
• Asian Democracy in World History. London: Routledge, 2004.
• What Does It Mean to be Human?: A New Interpretation of Freedom in World History. New York: Peter Lang, 2001.
• World Civilizations. Co-author, ninth edition. Two volumes. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
• Limits to Autocracy: From Sung Neo-Confucianism to a Doctrine of Political Rights. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1995.