Would anyone like to brainstorm with me about possible bachelor's thesis subjects? I'll be writing it in the second semester of next year, but I wanna get started as quickly as possible. I've already sought the advice of a professor I really respect, who specializes in the economic history of early modern India. I thought it couldn't hurt to put it out here, though.

I only have a very, very broad idea right now. My minor is non-Western history; I've taken classes on Southeast Asia, India, East Asia, and the Middle East so far, and written papers on state evasion in premodern Southeast Asia in the region now known as Zomia, the development of the Taiwanese national identity in the late 20th and early 21st century, the link between economic and military development in late 18th century South India, and the way the Taiping Rebellion is remembered in different periods of Chinese history.

For the thesis, I think I'd like to go a little further back. The area I'm most interested in is the cultural and economic history of medieval and early modern Asia; basically, cultural exchange along the Silk Road and through Indian Ocean trade. I don't know all that much about this area yet though, and I'd appreciate any recommended reading you might have to offer.

EDIT: I've gathered a very short preliminary reading list:

• Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean by K.N. Chaudhuri
• Nomads and Commissars: Mongolia Revisited by Owen Lattimore
• Pivot of Asia: Sinkiang and the Inner Asian Frontiers of China and Russia, also by Owen Lattimore
• A Cultural History of Tibet by David L. Snellgrove and Hugh Richardson
• A Brief History of Afghanistan by Shaista Wahab and Barry Youngerman

Picked up Soldaten from the library today; very interesting, absolutely horrifying. Based on the transcripts of secretly recorded conversations between German prisoners of war.