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Late Imperial Economy, 960–1895 (Chinese Studies)

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Jun 11th, 2018
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  1.  
  2. Introduction
  3. Although for most purposes “late imperial China” refers to the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1911), many scholars believe that key aspects of China’s late imperial economy came into existence as a result of a series of changes that began in the late Tang dynasty and culminated during the Song dynasty, known as the “Tang-Song transformation.” While these changes included, for example, the growth of markets, they were by no means limited to—or even mainly related to—economic history but included political changes, such as those in the nature of the elite. Without prejudging the issue, this bibliography covers the whole period from the establishment of the Song dynasty to the first Sino-Japanese War, after which railways and economic modernization began to change the Chinese economy. The old stereotype of premodern China as unchanging and economically stagnant has long been discarded, and scholars recognize that China had a dynamic and successful economy that managed to feed a growing population and developed a range of sophisticated institutions. The stereotype is now being turned on its head, and many are asking whether as late as the 18th century at least parts of China were as prosperous and as advanced as western Europe, whether Chinese commercial and legal institutions were as accommodating of economic growth as those in Europe, and, as a result, how one can explain the “great divergence” that took place between Europe and the rest of the world from (in this view) the early 19th century. A further underlying issue is to what extent models based on the European experience can be used to understand or explain development patterns in China. The most notable example of trying to force Chinese development into a European framework was of course Marxist stage theory. But more recently there has been a wider rejection of “Eurocentric” theories and models of development that are based on the European experience coupled with attempts to develop more distinctively Chinese—or Asian—models.
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
  6. The place to start, at least in English, is von Glahn 2016, a recently published survey that fills a major gap in the literature by providing an overview of China’s economic history up to the end of the 19th century. In addition, the reader can consult general texts on Chinese history or on specific periods. There are several such usable texts in English, but Hucker 1975 is listed because it has the most easily identified chapters specifically on the economy. Miyazaki 1977–1978 is also a general history that at the same time provides a classic statement of the centrality of the Song period in Chinese history. Ning 1999 is an overall interpretative history of the Chinese economy produced in China.
  7.  
  8. Hucker, Charles O. China’s Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1975.
  9.  
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  11.  
  12. Chapter 12 deals with economy and society in the late empire (960–1850); chapters 2 and 7 deal with the economy in earlier periods.
  13.  
  14. Find this resource:
  15.  
  16. Miyazaki Ichisada 宮崎市定. Chūgoku shi (中国史). 2 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1977–1978.
  17.  
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  19.  
  20. Comprehensive history of China that provides an authoritative statement for the view that China’s “modern period” should be dated from the Song dynasty.
  21.  
  22. Find this resource:
  23.  
  24. Ning Ke 宁可, ed. Zhongguo jingji fazhan shi (中国经济发展史). 5 vols. Beijing: Zhongguo jingji chubanshe, 1999.
  25.  
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  27.  
  28. A collective work organized mostly along conventional lines but, unusually, taking the story up to 1997 and explicitly aiming to examine the reasons for China’s economic rise, fall, and rise again.
  29.  
  30. Find this resource:
  31.  
  32. von Glahn, Richard. The Economic History of China: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
  33.  
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  35.  
  36. Based on an impressive array of Chinese-, Japanese-, and European-language sources, this book surveys Chinese economic history from the neolithic period to 1900. The last four (very substantial) chapters deal with the period covered by this article. Refutes any idea of an unchanging premodern China, and stresses the role of the state.
  37.  
  38. Find this resource:
  39.  
  40. Interpretative and Theoretical Overviews
  41. Although there is no overall survey in English of late imperial economic history, there have been several attempts to develop theories to explain key aspects of the economic trajectory over that period. Among the most influential is the “high-level equilibrium trap,” as posited in Elvin 1973. Deng 2007 is an ambitious attempt to interpret China’s long-term economic situation. One of the best-known though no-longer-fashionable macro theories, the Asiatic mode of production, is covered in different ways in Wittfogel 1957 and Brook 1989. Varieties of capitalism are dealt with in Gates 1996 and Hamilton 2006. Sugihara 2003 attempts to develop a theory of economic development appropriate to Asian rice-growing economies, while the Jin and Liu 1984 theory of a superstable society has been very influential, particularly in China.
  42.  
  43. Brook, Timothy, ed. The Asiatic Mode of Production in China. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1989.
  44.  
  45. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  46.  
  47. Collection of translations of Chinese articles on the concept that originated in Marx’s Grundrisse. Interesting because China was seen as one of the main instances of that mode, but possibly even more so because of the role these discussions played in Chinese political debates during the 1980s.
  48.  
  49. Find this resource:
  50.  
  51. Deng, Gang. The Premodern Chinese Economy: Structural Equilibrium and Capitalist Sterility. London: Routledge, 2007.
  52.  
  53. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  54.  
  55. Sees the trinary system of Confucianism, the imperial state, and the landholding system interacting with one another to determine the trajectory of the Chinese economy. The system was successful and highly stable but for that reason was poorly adapted to promoting long-term economic growth. The Song economic revolution was the exception. Originally published in 1999.
  56.  
  57. Find this resource:
  58.  
  59. Elvin, Mark. The Pattern of the Chinese Past. London: Eyre Methuen, 1973.
  60.  
  61. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  62.  
  63. One of the most stimulating and influential books on Chinese history, though some of its conclusions remain controversial. Argues that technological and economic change took place in many sectors during the Song period but that there was relative stagnation thereafter. Introduces the “high level equilibrium trap” to explain the latter.
  64.  
  65. Find this resource:
  66.  
  67. Gates, Hill. China’s Motor: A Thousand Years of Petty Capitalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.
  68.  
  69. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  70.  
  71. A study broadly in the Marxist tradition that interprets China’s economic history through an interplay between a “tributary” state-led, large-scale mode of production and a “petty capitalist” small-scale, private economy. Each model predominated at different periods. Covers kinship, gender, and folk ideologies as well as political economy.
  72.  
  73. Find this resource:
  74.  
  75. Hamilton, Gary G. Commerce and Capitalism in Chinese Societies. London: Routledge, 2006.
  76.  
  77. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  78.  
  79. Extensive analysis of preindustrial, modernizing, and modern Chinese societies by a leading sociologist. Strong emphasis on commerce and consumption rather than on production. Criticizes negative questions, such as why was there no capitalism in China? Reviews debates, such as that on “embryonic capitalism.”
  80.  
  81. Find this resource:
  82.  
  83. Jin Guantao 金观涛, and Liu Qingfeng 刘青峰. Xingsheng yu weiji: Lun Zhongguo fengjian shehui de chaowending jiegou (兴盛与危机: 论中国封建社会的超稳定结构). Changsha, China: Renmin chubanshe, 1984.
  84.  
  85. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  86.  
  87. Jin and Liu’s concept of an “ultrastable” structure in Chinese “feudal” society that underlay China’s backwardness and the persistence of feudalism was very influential in the 1980s and the 1990s—probably more so among politically concerned intellectuals than among historians in China or in the West.
  88.  
  89. Find this resource:
  90.  
  91. Sugihara, Kaoru. “The East Asian Path of Economic Development: A Long-Term Perspective.” In The Resurgence of East Asia: 500, 150, and 50 Year Perspectives. Edited by Giovanni Arrighi, Takeshi Hamashita, and Mark Selden, 78–123. London: Routledge, 2003.
  92.  
  93. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  94.  
  95. An ambitious attempt to develop an (East) Asian model of development on the basis of the economics of rice cultivation and more labor-intensive and labor-absorbing methods. Emphasizes success of the Chinese system in feeding a rapidly growing population, without a major drop in living standards.
  96.  
  97. Find this resource:
  98.  
  99. Wittfogel, Karl A. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957.
  100.  
  101. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  102.  
  103. Locates the (despotic) nature of Chinese and other Eastern societies and polities in the need for state coordination of irrigation systems. Most scholars feel Wittfogel overstated both the role of the state in irrigation and the influence of that on the political system. Nevertheless, the book has been very influential and still has insights to offer.
  104.  
  105. Find this resource:
  106.  
  107. Specific Dynasties
  108. On individual periods the series published through Harvard University Press provides sophisticated introductions to each major dynasty (see Kuhn 2009, Brook 2010, and Rowe 2009 on the Song, Yuan-Ming, and Qing, respectively). In principle the various volumes of The Cambridge History of China are to include surveys of the economy under the different dynasties, though not all have yet been published. Chapters on more specific topics are covered in the detailed headings, but McDermott and Shiba 2015 provides the most extensive analysis of the Song economy, and Myers and Wang 2002 offers a general analysis of the early and mid-Qing. In Chinese, however, there are many surveys. Wang 2007 and Fang, et al. 2007 are summations by senior scholars. Yan 2007 is the most authoritative treatment of the last half-century of the period.
  109.  
  110. Brook, Timothy. The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2010.
  111.  
  112. DOI: 10.4159/9780674056206Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  113.  
  114. Up-to-date and sophisticated survey of Ming history. Chapter 5, “Economy and Ecology,” offers an overview of the economy and the environment.
  115.  
  116. Find this resource:
  117.  
  118. Fang Xing 方行, Jing Junjian 经君健, and Wei Jinyu 魏金玉, eds. Zhongguo jingji tongshi: Qingdai jingji juan (中国经济通史:清代经济卷). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2007.
  119.  
  120. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  121.  
  122. Authoritative work from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on Qing economic history. Written mostly in the 1980s and the 1990s. Major sections include agriculture, handicrafts, commerce, land distribution, landlord economy, and peasant economy. Argues that population growth reduced the level of commercialization of Chinese grain production in the 18th and 19th centuries.
  123.  
  124. Find this resource:
  125.  
  126. Kuhn, Dieter. The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2009.
  127.  
  128. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  129.  
  130. Overall treatment of the Song dynasty and the contemporaneous Liao, Jin, and Xi Xia states. Chapters 10 and 11 examine a changing world of production and questions of money and taxes.
  131.  
  132. Find this resource:
  133.  
  134. McDermott, Joseph P., and Yoshinobu, Shiba. “Economic Change in China, 960–1279.” In Part Two: Sung China, 960–1279. Vol. 5 of Cambridge History of China. Edited by John W. Chaffee and Denis Twitchett, 321–436. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
  135.  
  136. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  137.  
  138. By far the most extensive and sophisticated treatment of the Song economy in English. No macroeconomic estimates, but much microlevel quantitative information. Extensive coverage of the major economic sectors, focusing on the basic conditions of production rather than government finance. Highlights the more commercial orientation of the Song dynasty compared with others and, less conventionally, the widespread environmental degradation during the dynasty.
  139.  
  140. Find this resource:
  141.  
  142. Myers, Ramon H., and Yeh-chien Wang. “Economic Developments, 1644–1800.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 9, Part 1, The Ch’ing Empire to 1800. Edited by Willard J. Peterson, 563–645. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
  143.  
  144. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  145.  
  146. General overview of the Qing economy. Focuses on the role of the state, private and hybrid economic organizations, economic crops, and handicraft industries. Emphasizes the successful expansion of the money supply, propitious climatic circumstances, and the light hand of the state. Identifies a “cellular” or “reticular” organization of the market economy.
  147.  
  148. Find this resource:
  149.  
  150. Rowe, William T. China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2009.
  151.  
  152. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  153.  
  154. An excellent volume in the Harvard series. Particularly relevant are chapter 5, “Commerce,” and sections on population and migration, land and labor, and economic depression. The last three chapters, “Restoration,” “Imperialism,” and “Revolution,” introduce the late-19th-century changes.
  155.  
  156. Find this resource:
  157.  
  158. Wang Yuquan 王毓铨, ed. Zhongguo jingji tongshi: Mingdai jingji juan (中国经济通史: 明代经济卷). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2007.
  159.  
  160. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  161.  
  162. Contains extensive treatments of major sectors, such as agriculture, handicrafts, and trade. However, there is no attempt to quantify key variables in the economy as a whole. Argues for economic growth and development from the 14th to the 16th centuries but decline in the 17th.
  163.  
  164. Find this resource:
  165.  
  166. Yan Zhongping 严中平, ed. Zhongguo jindai jingji shi, 1840–1894 (中国近代经济史, 1840–1894). Beijing: Jingji guanli chubanshe, 2007.
  167.  
  168. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  169.  
  170. Authoritative work from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, planned in the 1960s and written in the 1980s, on the Chinese economy in the late 19th century. Statistical appendices on Chinese labor abroad and modern enterprises run both by the state and by the private sector.
  171.  
  172. Find this resource:
  173.  
  174. Guides to Sources
  175. Accessing sources, especially but not only in Chinese and Japanese, is a major issue in researching Chinese economic history. This section offers some guidance on primary and secondary sources.
  176.  
  177. Primary Sources
  178. Nearly all the primary-source materials used in the study of late imperial Chinese economic history, at least up to the late 19th century, are in Chinese. Most of the relevant guides cover all aspects of premodern China rather than just the economy. Zurndorfer 1995 is the most comprehensive guide to guides, and Cohen 2000 lists the main guides, with advice on how to use the sources. Wilkinson 2015 is the classic guide to the actual source materials. Balazs and Hervouet 1978, Hartwell 1964, and Brook 1988 deal with more specific topics or periods. The most important archives are the Number One Historical Archives in Beijing, to which Bartlett 2011 is a guide. Unfortunately, the kind of business records described in Ma and Yuan 2016 are much rarer than in Europe where they have been a major resource for economic historians. Zhuang, et al. 1985 provides information on the existence and location of local histories.
  179.  
  180. Balazs, Etienne, and Yves Hervouet. A Sung Bibliography. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1978.
  181.  
  182. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  183.  
  184. A rich and thorough guide to primary sources on the Song dynasty. An index helps the reader access works relevant to the economy.
  185.  
  186. Find this resource:
  187.  
  188. Bartlett, Beatrice S. “Research Note: The Newly Digitized Archives Program at China’s Number One Historical Archives, Beijing.” Late Imperial China 32.1 (2011): 1–12.
  189.  
  190. DOI: 10.1353/late.2011.0002Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  191.  
  192. A guide to developments at the Number One Historical Archives by the West’s leading expert.
  193.  
  194. Find this resource:
  195.  
  196. Brook, Timothy. Geographical Sources of Ming-Qing History. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988.
  197.  
  198. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  199.  
  200. Details route books (practical handbooks for travelers) and topographical and institutional gazetteers (records of places, such as mountains or monasteries). Does not cover the large number of county and other gazetteers, which are much better known.
  201.  
  202. Find this resource:
  203.  
  204. Cohen, Alvin P. Introduction to Research in Chinese Source Materials. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.
  205.  
  206. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  207.  
  208. The title describes its purpose. Sections on language, bibliography, indexes, chronology, biography, and government. Encompasses both an annotated bibliography of source guides and reference works and more general advice on how to make best use of them.
  209.  
  210. Find this resource:
  211.  
  212. Hartwell, Robert M. A Guide to Sources of Chinese Economic History, A.D. 618–1368. Chicago: Committee on Far Eastern Civilizations, University of Chicago, 1964.
  213.  
  214. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  215.  
  216. Important though incomplete guide to sources of Chinese economic history in the Tang, Song, and Yuan periods, centering on materials relevant to the economy, in 155 sets of literary collected works (wenji 文集).
  217.  
  218. Find this resource:
  219.  
  220. Ma, Debin, and Weiping Yuan. “Discovering Economic History in Footnotes: The Story of the Tong Taisheng Merchant Archive (1790–1850).” Modern China 42.5 (2016): 483–504.
  221.  
  222. DOI: 10.1177/0097700415606872Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  223.  
  224. Fascinating account of the history of a major set (more than 450 volumes) of account books of a medium-sized business in North China, held in the National Library in Beijing. Ma and Yuan plan to use these materials to deepen our understanding of the late imperial economy and of the “great divergence” (see “Great Divergence” and the California School).
  225.  
  226. Find this resource:
  227.  
  228. Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A New Manual. 4th ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2015.
  229.  
  230. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  231.  
  232. A further revision of the leading introduction to the sources for Chinese history. Topical sections cover, for example, agriculture, technology, trade, and geography. And there is more detailed coverage dynasty by dynasty. Substantial introduction, for example, to the Number One Historical Archives (section 66.2.3).
  233.  
  234. Find this resource:
  235.  
  236. Zhuang Weifeng 壮威风, Zhu Shijia 朱士嘉, and Feng Baolin 冯宝琳, eds. Zhongguo difangzhi lianhe mulu (中国地方志联合目录). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985.
  237.  
  238. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  239.  
  240. A catalogue rather than a guide, but a crucial introduction to the local histories that are among the most important sources for the socioeconomic history of late imperial China.
  241.  
  242. Find this resource:
  243.  
  244. Zurndorfer, Harriet Thelma. China Bibliography: A Research Guide to Reference Works about China Past and Present. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1995.
  245.  
  246. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  247.  
  248. An older work but still the best overall guide to reference works on China. Covers bibliographies, journals, biographical sources, geographic sources, language tools, encyclopedias and collections, indexes, a calendar, and a guide to translations.
  249.  
  250. Find this resource:
  251.  
  252. Secondary Sources
  253. With relation to secondary sources, Guoxue Wang’s website Zhongguo jingji shi luntan is probably the best place to start to access late-20th- and early-21st-century work, while EH.net provides a range of book reviews, debates, and other material in English. Skinner 1973 is a massive compendium of secondary literature published up to that point. Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo 1997 offers an entry point into the secondary literature in China.
  254.  
  255. EH.net.
  256.  
  257. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  258.  
  259. Includes much useful information, book reviews, and other material. Also the site for debates on key issues.
  260.  
  261. Find this resource:
  262.  
  263. Guoxue wang 国学网. Zhongguo jingji shi luntan (中国经济史论坛).
  264.  
  265. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  266.  
  267. Valuable website on Chinese economic history, including both bibliographic information and a large number of full-text articles. Much new work is included here, and there are sections on a wide range of topics, including environmental history, population, agriculture, foreign economic relations, and more.
  268.  
  269. Find this resource:
  270.  
  271. Skinner, G. William, ed. Modern Chinese Society: An Analytical Bibliography. 3 vols. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1973.
  272.  
  273. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  274.  
  275. This massive work, including 31,000 items in Western languages, Chinese, and Japanese, is an indispensable guide to secondary materials published on Chinese society up to 1972. The starting point is 1644, so it includes much material on the Qing period.
  276.  
  277. Find this resource:
  278.  
  279. Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo. “Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu” bianjibu 中国社会科学院经济研究所中国经济史研究编辑部, ed. Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu ershinian, Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu lunzhu suoyin (中国经济史研究二十年，中国经济史研究论著索引). Beijing: Jingji yanjiu zazhi she, 1997.
  280.  
  281. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  282.  
  283. Published as a special supplement to Zhongguo jingjishi yanjiu (see also Journals) to celebrate its tenth anniversary, this includes an overview of research on Chinese economic history from the beginning of the reforms to the mid-1990s and bibliographies of books and articles. Later issues of the same journal also include annual reviews, albeit fairly descriptive.
  284.  
  285. Find this resource:
  286.  
  287. Data Sources
  288. Some important economic and geographic data on Chinese economic history have become available online. Angus Maddison’s Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1–2008 AD includes comparative figures of macro variables for gross domestic product (GDP) and population. Quantitative series for wages and prices can be found at the websites Global Price and Income History Group and the International Institute of Social History’s Prices and Wages. The availability of the China Historical GIS website means there is no longer any excuse for not including good maps in most historical projects.
  289.  
  290. China Historical GIS.
  291.  
  292. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  293.  
  294. Invaluable aid to creating a range of maps on Chinese economic and other history. The database has geographic information system (GIS) data for 1,820 provinces, prefectures, county capitals, and towns and villages for much of China.
  295.  
  296. Find this resource:
  297.  
  298. Global Price and Income History Group.
  299.  
  300. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  301.  
  302. This site, established by Peter Lindert, includes (among materials for many other countries) rice prices in China between 961 and 1910, wages between 1569 and 1810 and 1807 and 1925, and Beijing prices between 1728 and 1923.
  303.  
  304. Find this resource:
  305.  
  306. Prices and Wages. International Institute of Social History.
  307.  
  308. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  309.  
  310. For China this includes “State and Handicrafts in Peking, 1700–1900” and a database of wages, prices, and transport costs in the Beijing construction industry, as well as similar materials for other regions, mainly in the Qianlong 乾隆 period (1735–1796).
  311.  
  312. Find this resource:
  313.  
  314. Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1–2008 AD.
  315.  
  316. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  317.  
  318. Spreadsheet containing Angus Maddison’s (see Maddison 1998, cited under Quantitative Studies) estimates for population; GDP (in 1990 international Geary-Khamis dollars [GK$]); GDP per capita for the years 1, 1000, 1500, 1600, 1700, 1820, 1850, 1870, and 1890; and comparisons for other countries. Updates for per capita GDP, compiled by J. Bolt and J. L. van Zanden, are available online through the Maddison project.
  319.  
  320. Find this resource:
  321.  
  322. Journals
  323. Only in China do there exist specialized periodicals for Chinese economic history, with Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu, published in Beijing, being the most prestigious, and Zhongguo shehui jingji shi yanjiu representing a bit more of a nonmetropolitan approach. For Western-language works, one has to peruse general journals on China, Asia, history, or economic history.
  324.  
  325. Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu (中国经济史研究).
  326.  
  327. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  328.  
  329. Published by the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, this is the most prestigious journal in the field in China. It covers premodern and modern Chinese economic history and the economic history of other countries.
  330.  
  331. Find this resource:
  332.  
  333. Zhongguo shehui jingji shi yanjiu (中国社会经济史研究).
  334.  
  335. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  336.  
  337. Produced at Xiamen and therefore further from the center of academia and power than Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu. Xiamen’s coastal location means that maritime issues feature strongly in this journal, though articles are in no way limited to those issues (or to late imperial or premodern China).
  338.  
  339. Find this resource:
  340.  
  341. Long-Term Growth and Change
  342. As stated in the Introduction, the idea that the premodern Chinese economy was in any sense static has long been discredited. It is now clear that there were very substantial long-term changes, though the exact timing and contours of those changes remain in some cases a matter of controversy. In the case of late imperial China, there is a divergence between those scholars who believe that China’s “modern” economy emerged in the Song dynasty and underwent only limited change after that and those who downplay the importance of changes in the Song and instead see either major changes around the 16th century or a continuous process of successful development up to the 18th century. The work of quantifying any such economic changes has only just begun.
  343.  
  344. Quantitative Studies
  345. There is very little information on quantitative issues, such as the overall GDP of China or of areas within China in the premodern period. Ni, et al. 2016 surveys the field and points to major data and theoretical issues, while Deng and O’Brien 2016 suggests that insurmountable problems lie in the way of estimating historical GDP. Maddison 1998 is the pioneering, though questionable, attempt to generate comparable figures for China and other countries. Liu 2010 embodies a critique of Angus Maddison’s estimates for China. Golas 1988 is an extremely brief analysis of the size of the economy in the Song period. Guan and Li 2010 attempts estimates of GDP and GDP per capita in the Ming period at intervals of a decade. Chang 1962 is an early attempt to estimate China’s GDP in 1880, while Li 2013 possibly shows the way forward, with a careful estimation of the local GDP of Huating and Lou counties. Morgan 2009 is an attempt to address some of the issues of long-term changes in living standards, by indirect means, though the data for such a study are not available before the 19th century.
  346.  
  347. Chang Chung-li. The Income of the Chinese Gentry. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962.
  348.  
  349. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  350.  
  351. Centrally a study of gentry income from office, public functions, teaching, and other services as well as landownership and commerce, but a supplement estimates that gross national product was about 2.8 billion silver taels, which translates to 7.4 taels per capita or $32.61 in 1933 US dollars.
  352.  
  353. Find this resource:
  354.  
  355. Deng, Kent, and Patrick Karl O’Brien. “China’s GDP per Capita from the Han Dynasty to Communist Times.” London School of Economics Economic History Working Papers, No. 220/201, January 2016.
  356.  
  357. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  358.  
  359. Analysis of conceptual and data problems in the way of estimating GDP for Imperial China. Even for the modern economy, it is impossible to get a valid single set of prices where regional variations are so great. Moreover, the imperial state had no interest in collecting the sort of data that might make GDP estimates feasible. The authors conclude the whole enterprise is not viable.
  360.  
  361. Find this resource:
  362.  
  363. Golas, Peter. “The Sung Economy: How Big?” Bulletin of Sung Yuan Studies 20 (1988): 90–94.
  364.  
  365. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  366.  
  367. Very brief, but one of the few discussions of the size of the Song economy and of the problems in estimating it.
  368.  
  369. Find this resource:
  370.  
  371. Guan Hanhui 管汉晖, and Li Daogeng 李稻葵. “Mingdai GDP ji jiegou shitan” (明代GDP及结构试探). Jingji xue (jikan) 经济学[季刊 9.3 (2010): 787–828.
  372.  
  373. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  374.  
  375. Pioneering attempt to estimate the Ming GDP in an international comparative context, using Western literature such as Maddison 1998 and Floud and McCloskey on British economic history. Provides preliminary estimates mostly by decade for GDP, per capita GDP (in silver taels and 1990 US dollars), economic structure, government expenditure, and investment levels.
  376.  
  377. Find this resource:
  378.  
  379. Li Bozhong 李伯重. “An Early Modern Economy in China: A Study of the GDP of the Huating-Lou Area, 1823–1829.” In The Economy of Lower Yangzi Delta in Late Imperial China: Connecting Money, Markets, and Institutions. Edited by Billy So, 133–145. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013.
  380.  
  381. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  382.  
  383. A fairly brief English summary of Li’s much more substantial Zhongguo de zaoqi jindai jingji: 1820 niandai Huating, Lou xian diqu GDP yanjiu (中国的早期近代经济: 1820 年代华亭, 娄县地区GDP研究) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2010). Quantitative analysis of the local GDP in Huating and Lou counties (present-day Songjiang, Shanghai). Shows that the two counties were more urbanized with a larger proportion of industrial labor, though a lower proportion of income generated by capital, than the Netherlands.
  384.  
  385. Find this resource:
  386.  
  387. Liu Ti 刘逖. Qianjindai Zhongguo zongliang jingji yanjiu (1600–1840): Jianlun Angesi Madisen dui Ming-Qing GDP de gusuan (前近代中国总量经济研究 [1600–1840]: 兼论安格斯 麦迪森对明清GDP的估算). Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2010.
  388.  
  389. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  390.  
  391. A quantitative examination of aggregate estimates of China’s early modern GDP. Concludes that Maddison’s estimates are too high; China’s per capita GDP was only 40 percent of the United Kingdom’s even in 1600 and fell further behind. His conclusions are even further from the California position (see, for example, Pomeranz 2000, cited under the “Great Divergence” and the California School) than are Maddison’s. But the derivation of his estimates is often unclear.
  392.  
  393. Find this resource:
  394.  
  395. Maddison, Angus. Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1998.
  396.  
  397. DOI: 10.1787/9789264163553-enSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  398.  
  399. An explication of the quantitative estimates included in the Conference Board Total Economy Database (Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1–2008 AD, cited under Data Sources) and mostly included in this book. Even his more recent GDP figures are controversial, though Maddison responded that one has to start somewhere.
  400.  
  401. Find this resource:
  402.  
  403. Morgan, Stephen L. “Stature and Economic Development in South China, 1810–1880.” In Special Issue on Heights and Human Welfare. Explorations in Economic History 46.1 (2009): 53–69.
  404.  
  405. DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2008.03.001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  406.  
  407. One way to address the lack of quantitative information on macroeconomic aggregates has been to use anthropometric measures: average heights are probably correlated with nutrition and income. Morgan has been the leading researcher in this area, and this paper presents his conclusions on South China in the 19th century.
  408.  
  409. Find this resource:
  410.  
  411. Ni Yuping, Xu Yi, and Bas van Leeuwen. “Calculating China’s Historical Economic Aggregate: A GDP-Centered Overview.” Social Sciences in China 37.4 (2016): 56–75.
  412.  
  413. DOI: 10.1080/02529203.2016.1241494Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  414.  
  415. Useful survey of quantitative studies of China’s GDP, both in China and the West. Calls for extensive efforts in data collection but also the use of theoretically informed estimation. The issue of the treatment of the nonmarket sector is important for both China and Europe in the early modern period.
  416.  
  417. Find this resource:
  418.  
  419. The Song Economic Revolution
  420. It has become close to the orthodoxy that China’s economy underwent fundamental transformations from the late Tang and during the Song dynasty, encompassing the development of a market system, the emergence of a basically small peasant economy, and technological change boosting productivity in agriculture and industry. This in some ways reflects the view of the Japanese Kyoto school of Naitō Konan 内藤湖南 (see Fogel 1984 and Kamachi 1990, the latter cited under Feudalism), and it was seen to some extent as a justification for Japanese imperialism. Shiba 1970 is an introduction to the work of Japan’s leading historian of the Song. In China, Qi 2007 presents a very bullish account of the Song economy. The most systematic exposition in English of the idea of the Song economic revolution is Elvin 1973 (cited under Interpretative and Theoretical Overviews). The work of Robert M Hartwell is of great importance: Hartwell 1967 is an influential pioneering contribution, and Wright 2007 reviews the later reception and critiques of Hartwell’s work. Jones 1988 emphasizes the importance of the phenomenon in world history, while Kelly 1997 is a relatively theoretical attempt to understand economic changes in the Song. Li 2001, however, presents a more skeptical view.
  421.  
  422. Fogel, Joshua A. Politics and Sinology: The Case of Naitō Konan (1866–1934). Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1984.
  423.  
  424. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1tfjbqmSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  425.  
  426. Extensive analysis of Naitō’s ideas and role. Chapter 5 focuses on periodization issues and the links between Naitō’s ideas and Japan’s role in China. Naitō’s ideas focused more on politics than economics but have still been very influential in economic history.
  427.  
  428. Find this resource:
  429.  
  430. Hartwell, Robert M. “A Cycle of Economic Change in Imperial China: Coal and Iron in Northeast China, 750–1350.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 10.1 (1967): 102–159.
  431.  
  432. DOI: 10.1163/156852067X00109Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  433.  
  434. The final of a trio of very influential papers charting the expansion of the Chinese iron industry in the 11th century to a level where its output surpassed that of Britain in the 17th. Hartwell’s quantitative estimates are controversial, as is his (less well-documented) suggestion that the industry declined after the Song dynasty.
  435.  
  436. Find this resource:
  437.  
  438. Jones, Eric L. Growth Recurring: Economic Change in World History. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.
  439.  
  440. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  441.  
  442. Analysis of economic growth in history, trying to avoid a British-centric or Eurocentric approach and the idea that there is only a single pattern of growth. Argues that Song China saw the world’s first example of intensive economic growth with large increases in productivity, after which incomes stagnated for the next three dynasties. Influential though based entirely on secondary sources.
  443.  
  444. Find this resource:
  445.  
  446. Kelly, Morgan. “The Dynamics of Smithian Growth.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 112.3 (1997): 939–964.
  447.  
  448. DOI: 10.1162/003355397555398Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  449.  
  450. Very theoretical (by Chinese-studies standards) analysis of economic growth during the Song dynasty as an example of growth stimulated by increased division of labor resulting from better transportation. Argues that the Song economic revolution fits such a model.
  451.  
  452. Find this resource:
  453.  
  454. Li Bozhong 李伯重. “‘Choosing the Refined’ and ‘Collecting the Essential’ and the Agricultural Revolution in the Area South of the Yangtze River during the Song Dynasty: An Examination of Traditional Research Methods in Economic History.” Social Sciences in China 22.2 (2001): 136–144.
  455.  
  456. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  457.  
  458. Denies any sudden revolution in agricultural technology during the Song dynasty. Attributes the idea of a Song economic revolution to illegitimate generalizations from examples of the most advanced experience. An extended Chinese original is in Li Bozhong, Lilun, fangfa, fazhan qushi: Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu xintan (理论,方法,发展趋势: 中国经济史研究新探) (Beijing: Qinghua daxue chubanshe, 2002), pp. 97–156.
  459.  
  460. Find this resource:
  461.  
  462. Qi Xia 漆侠. Zhongguo jingji tongshi: Song (中国经济通史:宋). Beijing: Jingji ribao chubanshe, 2007.
  463.  
  464. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  465.  
  466. One in a series of dynastic economic histories. Qi Xia is known for his strong affirmation of economic growth in the Song and, for example, feels that Robert M. Hartwell is too cautious in his estimate of iron production.
  467.  
  468. Find this resource:
  469.  
  470. Shiba Yoshinobu 斯波義信. Commerce and Society in Sung China. Translated by Mark Elvin. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1970.
  471.  
  472. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  473.  
  474. An abstracted translation. A more recent version in Japanese is Sōdai shōgyōshi kenkyū (宋代商業史研究) (Tokyo: Kazama shobo, 1979). Shiba is Japan’s leading historian of the Song dynasty. Covers transport, the national market (especially for grain), cities, and commercial capital and organization. Despite elements of modernity, the economy remained basically premodern.
  475.  
  476. Find this resource:
  477.  
  478. Wright, Tim. “An Economic Cycle in Imperial China? Revisiting Robert Hartwell on Iron and Coal.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 50.4 (2007): 398–423.
  479.  
  480. DOI: 10.1163/156852007783244963Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  481.  
  482. Reviews the reception of the work of Hartwell (e.g., Hartwell 1967) on the Song iron and coal industries in the context of broader patterns of economic development in late imperial China.
  483.  
  484. Find this resource:
  485.  
  486. Embryonic Capitalism and the 16th-Century Commercial Revolution
  487. Many scholars have argued that major changes took place in China’s society and economy around the 16th century, in particular rapid growth of commerce and intensification of the market system. In the literature in China, many of these changes were conceptualized as “embryonic capitalism” (also translated as “the sprouts of capitalism”). Whatever one may think of the validity of the concept, the debates over “embryonic capitalism” stimulated a great deal of research into Ming-Qing economic history and greatly raised the level of knowledge of the subject. Deng 1956 is a seminal article focusing on the coal mines outside Beijing. Xu and Wu 2000 represents the culmination of decades of work on “embryonic capitalism,” though the trend has been away from using that term because of its association with Eurocentric Marxist stage theory. Faure 2006 reviews the debate and puts forward important new ideas. Brook and Blue 1999 extends the authors’ analysis far beyond this debate but has important things to say about the role of capitalism in China’s history and historiography. Many aspects of the “embryonic capitalism” model were used by those who argued that China’s market economy originated around the 16th century. A focus on this period is representative of the Tokyo school of Japanese scholarship (see Grove and Esherick 1980).
  488.  
  489. Brook, Timothy, and Gregory Blue, eds. China and Historical Capitalism: Genealogies of Sinological Knowledge. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  490.  
  491. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511470707Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  492.  
  493. Important set of interpretative chapters on China and the world system (Immanuel Wallerstein), China and Western social thought (Blue), capitalism and history writing in China (Brook), non-Western technology (Francesca Bray), and the political economy of the agrarian empire (R. Bin Wong).
  494.  
  495. Find this resource:
  496.  
  497. Deng Tuo 邓拓 “Cong Wanli dao Qianlong: Guanyu Zhongguo zibenzhuyi mengya shiqi de yige lunzheng” (从万历到乾隆： 关于中国资本主义萌芽时期的一个论证). Lishi yanjiu 历史研究 10 (1956): 1–31.
  498.  
  499. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  500.  
  501. Influential and much-cited article on the coal mines around Beijing from the 16th to 18th centuries by a leading “establishment intellectual” and an early victim of the Cultural Revolution. Mainly interested in the “relations” rather than the “forces” of production in the context of the debate on “embryonic capitalism.”
  502.  
  503. Find this resource:
  504.  
  505. Faure, David. China and Capitalism: A History of Business Enterprise in Modern China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006.
  506.  
  507. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  508.  
  509. Chapter 2 reviews the “embryonic capitalism” debate, rejecting the Chinese Marxist focus on wage labor. Important ideas relating to the operation of markets, with a stress that patronage from the top affected all the various interlocking layers of commercial activity.
  510.  
  511. Find this resource:
  512.  
  513. Grove, Linda, and Joseph W. Esherick. “From Feudalism to Capitalism: Japanese Scholarship on the Transformation of Chinese Rural Society.” Modern China 6.4 (1980): 397–438.
  514.  
  515. DOI: 10.1177/009770048000600402Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  516.  
  517. Important article introducing Japanese scholarship, mostly of the Marxist Tokyo school, that saw fundamental changes in Chinese rural society, in particular the rise of rural handicraft industries, occurring in the late Ming and the early Qing dynasties.
  518.  
  519. Find this resource:
  520.  
  521. Xu Dixin 许涤新, and Wu Chengming 吴承明, eds. Chinese Capitalism, 1522–1840. Translated by Li Zhengde, Liang Miaoru, and Li Siping. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 2000.
  522.  
  523. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  524.  
  525. An abridged translation of the first volume of the editors’ authoritative Chinese text on the development of capitalism in China, Zhongguo zibenzhuyi fazhan shi (中国资本主义发展史) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1985).
  526.  
  527. Find this resource:
  528.  
  529. The “Great Divergence” and the California School
  530. China has become an integral part of global history, as shown in Allen 2011. This is in large part because of the influence of the “great divergence” debate: why and how Europe forged ahead to modern science, economic development, and higher living standards while China, which had at least up to the 14th century had the world’s most advanced economy and technology, fell behind. Since the late 1990s, works by a number of scholars (most notably Wong 1997 and Pomeranz 2000; see also EH.net, cited under Secondary Sources) have argued that in fact up to the late 18th century the economy of the advanced parts of China (notably the Yangzi delta) was in most ways on a par with that of western Europe. It was only from the early 19th century onward that their paths diverged. Rosenthal and Wong 2011 is an important and ambitious attempt to explain the “great divergence” in a way that also explains China’s earlier predominance. The articles in Wang 2011 outline Chinese responses to the debate, while Landes 2006 is an important rejection of the California position. An exhaustive review of the debate can be found in Vries 2013, which focuses centrally on why Britain took off, but uses China throughout the book as the main counterexample. In the China context this debate to some extent follows from an earlier debate on the “Needham question” (why China did not develop modern science and fell behind economically; see Lin 2008), but scholars such as Kenneth Pomeranz in particular look for the answer outside rather than (or at least as well as) inside China. One important aspect of the new approach is to transfer attention from an “economic revolution” in the Song dynasty to slower and more long-term growth culminating in the 18th century. Li Bozhong’s work (Li 2013, cited under Quantitative Studies; Li 2001, cited under the Song Economic Revolution; and Li 1998, cited under Agriculture) has been central in that respect. Huang 2009 is an example of more recent Chinese work on the issue.
  531.  
  532. Allen, Robert C. Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
  533.  
  534. DOI: 10.1093/actrade/9780199596652.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  535.  
  536. What it says on the cover. Deals with the issues from a global perspective. By one of the best and most readable of the world’s economic historians.
  537.  
  538. Find this resource:
  539.  
  540. Huang Jingbin 黄敬斌. Minsheng yu jiaji: Qingchu zhi minguo shiqi Jiangnan jumin de xiaofei (民生与家计: 清初至民国时期江南居民的消费). Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2009.
  541.  
  542. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543.  
  544. A study of consumption and household budgets in Jiangnan from the early Qing to the republican periods. Explicitly interacts with the California school and with Pomeranz and Li Bozhong. Extensive materials on luxury consumption.
  545.  
  546. Find this resource:
  547.  
  548. Landes, David S. “Why Europe and the West? Why Not China?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 20.2 (2006): 3–22.
  549.  
  550. DOI: 10.1257/jep.20.2.3Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551.  
  552. Response to the California school position by the leading historian of (European) technology and economy. Provides a cultural explanation for the divergence, which he dates from much earlier than do the California School. Part at least of the answer lay in China’s lack of science and the scientific method.
  553.  
  554. Find this resource:
  555.  
  556. Lin, Justin Yi-fu. “The Needham Puzzle, the Weber Question, and China’s Miracle: Long-Term Performance since the Sung Dynasty.” China Economic Journal 1.1 (2008): 63–95.
  557.  
  558. DOI: 10.1080/17538960701565053Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559.  
  560. Thoughts from China’s leading economist and the vice president of the World Bank. Lin stresses first the absence of a scientific revolution in China and thence the role of the civil-service examinations in diverting talent away from inquiry in the natural sciences.
  561.  
  562. Find this resource:
  563.  
  564. Pomeranz, Kenneth. The Great Divergence: Europe, China, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
  565.  
  566. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  567.  
  568. This very important work argues that China’s most advanced areas were roughly on a par with advanced areas of Europe up to the late 18th century. The divergence came later as a result of the accident of the location of British coal deposits and the impact of the European colonization of the New World.
  569.  
  570. Find this resource:
  571.  
  572. Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, and R. Bin Wong. Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.
  573.  
  574. DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674061293Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  575.  
  576. An important attempt to explain divergences over a long period in the light of differences of scale of political unit, political competition, and resulting differences in factor prices. Europe’s fragmentation was a disadvantage in relation to China up to the 18th century, after which, for unintended reasons, the resulting concentration of industrial activity in urban areas spurred the industrial revolution.
  577.  
  578. Find this resource:
  579.  
  580. Vries, Peer. Escaping Poverty: The Origins of Modern Economic Growth. Vienna: Vienna University Press, 2013.
  581.  
  582. DOI: 10.14220/9783737001687Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  583.  
  584. A wide-ranging survey of the “great divergence” debate, encompassing the ideas both of economists and of global historians. Skeptical of mono-causal economic explanations and of the California School’s stress on similarities between Britain and advanced areas of China. As developed more extensively in Vries 2015 (cited under State and Economy), stresses the importance of the strength of the British state, in particular vis-à-vis the Qing state.
  585.  
  586. Find this resource:
  587.  
  588. Wang, Q. Edward, ed. Special Issue: The “California School” in China. Chinese Studies in History 45.1 (2011).
  589.  
  590. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  591.  
  592. A series of translated Chinese articles responding in different ways to the work of Pomeranz (and Andre Gunder Frank) in relation to the “great divergence.”
  593.  
  594. Find this resource:
  595.  
  596. Wong, R. Bin. China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997.
  597.  
  598. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  599.  
  600. The first of three parts is a pioneering statement of the close parallels between the European and Chinese economies up to the 18th century. Both had a sophisticated market economy and enjoyed successful “Smithean” growth—that is, growth dependent on commerce, specialization, and the division of labor rather than on technological transformation.
  601.  
  602. Find this resource:
  603.  
  604. Regional Economies
  605. Many of the works listed under other headings are in fact regional studies. One of the major trends in the study of most aspects of Chinese history in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has been to deconstruct the national and focus on regional or local differences and systems. Few would say that China had a national economy, at least until the very end of the Qing dynasty and possibly not then. Actual economic systems were regionally based, and often their rise and fall were not synchronized with other regions.
  606.  
  607. Regionalism
  608. The works of G. William Skinner, summarized in Skinner 1985 and developed in much greater detail in Skinner 1977 (see also Skinner 2001, cited under Market System), have been crucial in providing the general and theoretical underpinning of regional studies. Hartwell 1982 is an ambitious study linking long-term economic and political changes to the regional dynamics of different macroregions. Sands and Myers 1986 represents a major critique of the macroregional concept, and Little and Esherick 1989 is a riposte.
  609.  
  610. Hartwell, Robert M. “Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750–1550.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42.2 (1982): 365–442.
  611.  
  612. DOI: 10.2307/2718941Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  613.  
  614. Important article using a Skinnerian framework to study the pattern of regional cycles in Tang to Ming China. There were major changes in the relative populations of regions, with an overall shift toward South China.
  615.  
  616. Find this resource:
  617.  
  618. Little, Daniel, and Joseph W. Esherick. “Testing the Testers: A Reply to Barbara Sands and Ramon Myers’s Critique of G. William Skinner’s Regional Systems Approach to China.” Journal of Asian Studies 48.1 (1989): 90–99.
  619.  
  620. DOI: 10.2307/2057666Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  621.  
  622. Counter to Sands and Myers 1986. Argues that the fact of interregional trade does not disprove Skinner’s macroregional concept. Skinner’s regions are functional regions rather than regions defined by internal uniformity or by difference from other regions.
  623.  
  624. Find this resource:
  625.  
  626. Sands, Barbara A., and Ramon H. Myers. “The Spatial Approach to Chinese History: A Test.” Journal of Asian Studies 45.4 (1986): 721–743.
  627.  
  628. DOI: 10.2307/2056084Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  629.  
  630. Argues that Skinner’s concept of eight more or fewer autonomous macroregions does not describe the Chinese reality, focusing too much on urban areas. An attempt—not entirely successful, in my view—to challenge Skinner’s theories at the high level of theory and generality at which they are pitched.
  631.  
  632. Find this resource:
  633.  
  634. Skinner, G. William, ed. The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1977.
  635.  
  636. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  637.  
  638. Three chapters authored by Skinner—“Urban Development in Imperial China,” pp. 3–31; “Regional Urbanization in Nineteenth-Century China,” pp. 211–249; and “Cities and the Hierarchy of Local Systems,” pp. 275–351—provide the most detailed exposition of Skinner’s influential concept of macroregions. Differentiates political and economic hierarchies. Advances the concept of regional cores and peripheries. Possibly the most influential work on late imperial and modern Chinese history.
  639.  
  640. Find this resource:
  641.  
  642. Skinner, G. William. “Presidential Address: The Structure of Chinese History.” Journal of Asian Studies 44.2 (1985): 271–292.
  643.  
  644. DOI: 10.2307/2055923Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  645.  
  646. The most accessible brief introduction to Skinner’s concept of macroregions. See also Skinner 2001, cited under Market System. Analyzes the economic cycle in north China, centered on Kaifeng, during the Song dynasty and the totally asynchronous southeast coast cycle as regional rather than national phenomena. Postulates largely independent long-wave regional cycles of 150 to 300 years.
  647.  
  648. Find this resource:
  649.  
  650. Studies of Specific Regions
  651. Of all the regions, the Lower Yangzi was the most wealthy and most studied; it has also played a key role in the Great Divergence debate (see the “Great Divergence” and the California School). So 2013 offers a series of studies on the region, while Marmé 2005 and Zurndorfer 1989 study important localities within the region. Smith 1988 offers a thorough and persuasive long-term regional study of the Upper Yangzi, while Rawski 1972 and So 2000 offer excellent studies of regions in South China.
  652.  
  653. Marmé, Michael. Suzhou: Where the Goods of All the Provinces Converge. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005.
  654.  
  655. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  656.  
  657. Study of Suzhou, one of the largest and most developed of the world’s preindustrial cities, during the Ming dynasty. Contributes to debates, including those on the usefulness of Skinner’s concept of macroregions and the limits of “Smithian” growth. Covers the silk and cotton textile industries as well as commerce.
  658.  
  659. Find this resource:
  660.  
  661. Rawski, Evelyn S. Agricultural Change and the Peasant Economy of South China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972.
  662.  
  663. DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674428782Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  664.  
  665. Important study focusing on the coastal province of Fujian in the 16th century and the inland province of Hunan in the 18th. Shows how growing commercialization led to the intensification and diversification of farming. Questions the Marxist view of peasant oppression by landlords.
  666.  
  667. Find this resource:
  668.  
  669. Smith, Paul J. “Commerce, Agriculture, and Core Formation in the Upper Yangzi, 2 A.D. to 1948.” Late Imperial China 9.1 (1988): 1–78.
  670.  
  671. DOI: 10.1353/late.1988.0004Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  672.  
  673. Long-term study of the upper Yangzi macroregion, showing that growing trade along the Yangzi led to a shift in the region’s center of gravity from the Chengdu plain to Chongqing. Development was interrupted by two demographic catastrophes in the late 13th and mid-17th centuries.
  674.  
  675. Find this resource:
  676.  
  677. So, Billy K. L. Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China: The South Fukien Pattern, 946–1368. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000.
  678.  
  679. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  680.  
  681. A regional study of 200 years of sustained prosperity in southern Fujian, centered on Quanzhou, and emphasizing the importance of maritime trade. Uses Skinner’s regional systems approach, while the analysis of institutions draws on Douglass North’s neo-institutionalist ideas.
  682.  
  683. Find this resource:
  684.  
  685. So, Billy K. L., ed. The Economy of Lower Yangzi Delta in Late Imperial China: Connecting Money, Markets, and Institutions. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013.
  686.  
  687. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  688.  
  689. Important collection of articles on the Lower Yangzi, covering both the social organization of economic activity (including guilds and merchant groups) and economic sectors such as currency, cotton and agriculture.
  690.  
  691. Find this resource:
  692.  
  693. Zurndorfer, Harriet Thelma. Change and Continuity in Chinese Local History: The Development of Hui-chou Prefecture, 800 to 1800. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1989.
  694.  
  695. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  696.  
  697. Study of Huizhou prefecture in Anhui, the base of one of the main merchant groups in late imperial China. Economic historians will be most interested in chapter 3, on commercial wealth and rural pauperism, and chapter 4, on demographic dynamics, finding life expectancy at age twenty of over forty years.
  698.  
  699. Find this resource:
  700.  
  701. Land Tenure and Rural Society
  702. Much the largest part of the late imperial Chinese economy was rural, though urban phenomena tended to be more visible. We still have much to learn about the nature and working of rural society and rural economy, and McDermott 2013 uses the rich primary materials from Huizhou in southern Anhui to paint a more nuanced picture of rural society than could be developed using more official sources.
  703.  
  704. McDermott, Joseph P. The Making of a New Rural Order in South China: I. Village, Land, and Lineage in Huizhou, 900–1600. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
  705.  
  706. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781107070455Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  707.  
  708. A work of the utmost significance. Aims to portray the rural and local underpinnings of China’s booming commercial world in the Ming dynasty. Particular focus on the changing role of lineages and other village institutions. A major contribution to economic history is the author’s fascinating account of the emergence of a market in timber futures in the mountains around Huizhou in order to manage risk.
  709.  
  710. Find this resource:
  711.  
  712. Feudalism
  713. Chinese and Japanese discussions of rural society in the late imperial period tend to have been framed in the context of “feudalism,” while Western scholars mostly avoid that concept, certainly for the late imperial period. Although the Marxist orthodoxy up to the 1980s was that premodern China was a “feudal” society, the type of feudalism found in the West, centered on the manorial system, was by late imperial times the exception rather than the rule (see Elvin 1970). Another possible way of looking at feudalism was as a system based on the noneconomic extraction of surplus from the direct producers, and Chinese views on feudalism (the classic examples are Fu 1981–1986 for the earlier period and Fu 2007 for the Ming and Qing periods) received much more serious consideration among Japanese scholars (see Sudō 1962 and Kamachi 1990) than among Western scholars.
  714.  
  715. Elvin, Mark. “The Last Thousand Years of Chinese History: Changing Patterns in Land Tenure.” Modern Asian Studies 4.2 (1970): 97–114.
  716.  
  717. DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X00005072Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  718.  
  719. Outline of the transition from manors and serfs in the Song dynasty to a basically small freeholder system by the end of imperial China. Argues that the major changes took place around the 17th century, impelled partly by peasant uprisings and a wider range of investment opportunities for the wealthy.
  720.  
  721. Find this resource:
  722.  
  723. Fu Zshufu 傅筑夫. Zhongguo fengjian shehui jingji shi (中国封建社会经济史). 5 vols. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1981–1986.
  724.  
  725. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  726.  
  727. The classic study of the economic history of Chinese feudal society. However, Fu never got beyond the Song period, which is the subject of Volume 5. Deals with economic geography, population, agriculture, handicrafts, commerce, currency, and labor systems. Extensive quotations from primary sources.
  728.  
  729. Find this resource:
  730.  
  731. Fu Yiling 傅衣凌. Ming-Qing nongcun shehui jingji: Ming-Qing shehui jingi bianquan lun (明清农村社会经济: 明清社会经济变迁论). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007.
  732.  
  733. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  734.  
  735. Deals with economic and social change in rural society during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Chapters on the land ownership system, landlords, peasants, peasant struggles, and development trends. Originally published in 1961, this is a classic from one of China’s leading historians.
  736.  
  737. Find this resource:
  738.  
  739. Kamachi, Noriko. “Feudalism or Absolute Monarchism? Japanese Discourse on the Nature of State and Society in Late Imperial China.” Modern China 16.3 (1990): 330–370.
  740.  
  741. DOI: 10.1177/009770049001600304Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  742.  
  743. Review of debates in Japan over the periodization and characterization of late imperial Chinese society, in particular the issue of whether and to what extent the society was feudal.
  744.  
  745. Find this resource:
  746.  
  747. Sudō Yoshiyuki 周藤吉之. Sōdai keizai shi kenkyū (宋代経済史研究). Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1962.
  748.  
  749. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  750.  
  751. Economic history of the Song dynasty by one of the leading exponents of the ideas of the “Tokyo school,” which stresses (in contrast to Miyazaki Ichisada and the Kyoto school) the continuing elements of “feudal” personal dependency in the Song and beyond.
  752.  
  753. Find this resource:
  754.  
  755. Land Tenure and Land Systems
  756. Most Western scholars now rather see China’s rural system predominantly as a market system. In any case, the land tenure system was highly complex (for the Song dynasty, see McDermott 1984), for instance, in the development in many areas of central and South China of a system of permanent tenancy of two or more levels of ownership. Bernhardt 1992 is a sophisticated analysis of the situation in China’s richest area, linking the issues to the later Communist revolution. Faure 1986, a study of the Hong Kong New Territories, raises the issue of settlement rights.
  757.  
  758. Bernhardt, Kathryn. Rents, Taxes, and Peasant Resistance: The Lower Yangzi Region, 1840–1950. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992.
  759.  
  760. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  761.  
  762. Important study of the lower Yangzi, mainly in the late Qing period. Provides detailed evidence of the great complexity of the region’s rent and tax systems. Postulates a long-term trend toward a weakening of the position of the landlords because of their relocation to urban areas.
  763.  
  764. Find this resource:
  765.  
  766. Faure, David. The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1986.
  767.  
  768. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  769.  
  770. Important in giving a different perspective, that of the role of lineages and the rights of settlement (gained through kinship) as a precondition to land ownership in village society.
  771.  
  772. Find this resource:
  773.  
  774. McDermott, Joseph P. “Charting Blank Spaces and Disputed Regions: The Problem of Sung Land Tenure.” Journal of Asian Studies 44.1 (1984): 13–41.
  775.  
  776. DOI: 10.2307/2056745Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  777.  
  778. A review of the evidence on Song land tenure, in the light of the debates between the Tokyo and Kyoto schools. Emphasizes the complexity and variation of land tenure patterns.
  779.  
  780. Find this resource:
  781.  
  782. Productive Industries
  783. Most of China’s population was engaged in productive activity, either in agriculture (the great majority) or in industry. Scholars have paid attention to the organization and the technology of production, in both of which China led the world up to the middle of the second millennium CE.
  784.  
  785. Agriculture
  786. Broader questions of Chinese economic history, such as that over the degree of technological change or progress over this period, also influence writings on agriculture. Amano 1979 offers the broadest overviews (see also Bray 1984, cited under Technologies), while Li 1998 is a strong argument for continuing technological improvement, at least through diffusion. Philip Huang (Huang 1985, Huang 1990) has been the most influential exponent of the concept of “involution” in relation to Chinese agriculture. How far Chinese agriculture can or should be understood in European terms is another issue, and Bray 1994 (as well as Li 1998) argues that there are fundamental differences between wet rice farming and dry wheat farming. Perkins 1969 is the most systematic study of quantitative aspects of Chinese agriculture over the whole period since the early Ming, while Heijdra 1998 is an informative analysis of the situation in the Ming dynasty.
  787.  
  788. Amano Motonosuke 天野元之助. Chūgoku nōgyō shi kenkyū (中国農業史研究). Exp. ed. Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobō, 1979.
  789.  
  790. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  791.  
  792. Massive study by the leading Japanese scholar on the history of Chinese agriculture. Covers farming technology for each dynasty and each region under the Qing. Extensive chapters on wheat, rice, silkworms, and cotton. Uses both documentary and archaeological evidence.
  793.  
  794. Find this resource:
  795.  
  796. Bray, Francesca. The Rice Economies: Technology and Development in Asian Societies. 2d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
  797.  
  798. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  799.  
  800. An important rejection of Eurocentrism, arguing that the economics and technology of rice cultivation lead to a substantially different pattern of change from those found in the predominantly dry agriculture of Europe. Originally published in 1986.
  801.  
  802. Find this resource:
  803.  
  804. Heijdra, Martin. “The Socio-economic Development of Rural China during the Ming.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 8, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 2. Edited by Frederick Wade Mote and Denis Twitchett, 417–578. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  805.  
  806. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  807.  
  808. Outlines the main contours of the Ming rural economy, covering crops, climate, population, agricultural intensification, and regional variations in land regimes. Argues for declining living standards and life expectancy from the mid-Ming to the mid-Qing dynasties.
  809.  
  810. Find this resource:
  811.  
  812. Huang, Philip C. C. The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985.
  813.  
  814. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  815.  
  816. Introduces the concept of “involution” in the context of a wide-ranging analysis of change in the North China rural economy. Mainly about the modern period, but chapters 5, 6, and 13 are about small peasant and estate economies in the early Qing dynasty, about commercialization in the Qing, and about villages and the Qing state, respectively.
  817.  
  818. Find this resource:
  819.  
  820. Huang, Philip C. C. The Peasant Family and Rural Development in the Yangzi Delta, 1350–1988. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990.
  821.  
  822. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  823.  
  824. Long-term study of the agricultural and rural economy of the lower Yangzi, applying the concept of “involution.” Argues that despite increased commercialization, capital inputs per unit of labor and average returns to labor both declined.
  825.  
  826. Find this resource:
  827.  
  828. Li Bozhong. Agricultural Development in Jiangnan, 1620–1850. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1998.
  829.  
  830. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  831.  
  832. An analysis of agricultural development in the lower Yangzi. Argues that China’s economy had reached a high level by the 18th century, with continuing technological diffusion throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties. Li is China’s most prominent economic historian, certainly in terms of engagement with issues of interest to Western scholars.
  833.  
  834. Find this resource:
  835.  
  836. Perkins, Dwight H. Agricultural Development in China, 1368–1968. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1969.
  837.  
  838. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  839.  
  840. The leading English-language study of Chinese agriculture in the long term, starting from the beginning of the Ming. The author says he assumes (plausibly) rather than demonstrates the commonly cited finding that agricultural output per head was constant over the long term. His discussion of population levels has not been entirely superseded.
  841.  
  842. Find this resource:
  843.  
  844. Handicraft Industries
  845. Though remaining a predominantly agricultural society, late imperial China also had some of the world’s most developed and technologically advanced industries, as examined in Wei 2004 most broadly and in Li 2010 on the industrial landscape of China’s most advanced and prosperous area. Both Tanaka 1984 and Mazumdar 1998 link the development of (textile and sugar) handicraft production to broader changes in society. Though the industries were predominantly small scale and often rural, scholars have nevertheless identified some large-scale and semicapitalist organizations. Yan 1957 and Zelin 2005 describe large-scale copper mining in Yunnan and salt extraction in Sichuan, respectively.
  846.  
  847. Li Bozhong 李伯重. Jiangnan de zaoqi gongyehua, 1550–1850 (江南的早期工业化, 1550–1850). Rev. ed. Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2010.
  848.  
  849. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  850.  
  851. Influential study of early industrialization in Jiangnan, China’s most advanced area in late imperial times. Covers industries including textiles, food, clothing, shipbuilding, and other heavy industries.
  852.  
  853. Find this resource:
  854.  
  855. Mazumdar, Sucheta. Sugar and Society in China: Peasants, Technology, and the World Market. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1998.
  856.  
  857. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1dnnb7nSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  858.  
  859. Massive study of the role of sugar in South China’s rural economy. Advances the concept of the smallholder economy based on commercialized crop production but still under the domination of the elite. Argues for considerable technological advance in late imperial times, though only within the confines of the smallholder system.
  860.  
  861. Find this resource:
  862.  
  863. Tanaka Masatoshi 田中正俊. “Rural Handicraft in Jiangnan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” In State and Society in China: Japanese Perspectives on Ming-Qing Social and Economic History. Edited by Linda Grove and Christian Daniels, 79–100. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1984.
  864.  
  865. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  866.  
  867. Study of the silk industry in Jiangnan by one of Japan’s most prominent economic historians of China. Argues that the expansion of handicrafts reflected changes within the peasant family unit. Opposes Chinese ideas of “embryonic capitalism.” These ideas are developed more fully in Tanaka’s Chūgoku kindai keizai shi kenkyū josetsu (中国近代経済史研究序説) (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1973).
  868.  
  869. Find this resource:
  870.  
  871. Wei Mingkong 魏明孔, ed. Zhongguo shougongye jingji tongshi (中国手工业经济通史). 2 vols. Fuzhou, China: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2004.
  872.  
  873. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  874.  
  875. Volume 1, Song-Yuan juan (中国手工业通史:宋元卷); Volume 2, Ming-Qing juan (中国手工业通史:明清卷). Intensively researched and authoritative overviews of the development of handicraft industries in the late imperial period. Covers the main lines of production and forms of organization, technological developments, and the role of handicrafts in the economy as a whole.
  876.  
  877. Find this resource:
  878.  
  879. Yan Zhongping 严中平. Qingdai Yunnan tongzheng kao (清代云南铜政考). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1957.
  880.  
  881. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  882.  
  883. Study of the Yunnan copper mines, one of the largest industrial agglomerations in premodern China.
  884.  
  885. Find this resource:
  886.  
  887. Zelin, Madeleine. The Merchants of Zigong: Industrial Entrepreneurship in Early Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
  888.  
  889. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  890.  
  891. Path-breaking study that debunks many stereotypical ideas of the relationship of premodern Chinese society to the economy. The industry overcame a range of technological and organizational challenges by using mainly indigenous resources and methods. The lineage trust functioned as a business organization, and there was a highly sophisticated system of contracts.
  892.  
  893. Find this resource:
  894.  
  895. Technologies
  896. Many volumes of the massive project on Chinese science and technology, Science and Civilisation in China, under the general editorship of Joseph Needham, could be listed here. The scale and ambition of the project are unparalleled, and a wide range of expert authors use literary, scientific, and archaeological evidence to piece together the theoretical and practical aspects of Chinese science and technology up to the 19th century. Particularly important for the economy are Bray 1984 (agriculture; see also Amano 1979 and Bray 1994, cited under Agriculture), Daniels and Menzies 1996 (agro-industries), Golas 1999 (mining), Kuhn 1988 (textiles), and Wagner 2008 (ferrous metallurgy). Needham, and sometimes to a somewhat lesser extent his collaborators, write about technology centrally as providing evidence for Chinese science. More recently, scholars have also examined the embedding of technology in China’s society and culture, as is well exemplified in the articles in Schäfer 2012.
  897.  
  898. Bray, Francesca. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 6, Biology and Biological Technology: Part 2, Agriculture. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
  899.  
  900. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  901.  
  902. Comprehensive analysis of the Chinese agricultural system, dealing with field systems, agricultural implements and techniques, and crop systems. Emphasizes the transformative potential of many implements and the differences between dry-land cereal cultivation and paddy rice farming. Wet-rice agriculture in South China evolved toward a petty commodity mode of production.
  903.  
  904. Find this resource:
  905.  
  906. Daniels, Christian, and Nicholas K. Menzies. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 6, Biology and Biological Technology: Part 3, Agro-industries and Forestry. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
  907.  
  908. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  909.  
  910. Agro-industries developed rapidly from the Song dynasty, and techniques and processes developed in that context throw much light on the progress of Chinese technology as a whole. While briefly mentioning other industries, such as tea, the volume focuses on sugar production (see especially pp. 88–128 for the expansion of the industry) and forestry.
  911.  
  912. Find this resource:
  913.  
  914. Golas, Peter. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology: Part 13, Mining. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  915.  
  916. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  917.  
  918. One of a large number of volumes in Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilization in China that includes valuable information on late imperial industries. This volume on mining argues that there was little technological progress in Chinese mining even from the Warring States period.
  919.  
  920. Find this resource:
  921.  
  922. Kuhn, Dieter. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology: Part 9, Textile Technology; Spinning and Reeling. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
  923.  
  924. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  925.  
  926. For the purpose of this article, the key part of this important work is the analysis of the high point of textile technology in the 10th to 13th centuries and its subsequent decline.
  927.  
  928. Find this resource:
  929.  
  930. Schäfer, Dagmar, ed. Cultures of Knowledge: Technology in Chinese History. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2012.
  931.  
  932. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  933.  
  934. Significant collection of articles on Chinese technology. Four sections deal with the transmission of technology, symbolic technology, knowledge markets, and innovation, all with European comparisons. Articles by Francesca Bray on agricultural treatises and by William Rowe cover technology transmission. Anne Gerritsen and Susan Naquin analyze ceramics and temple-building.
  935.  
  936. Find this resource:
  937.  
  938. Wagner, Donald B. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology: Part 11, Ferrous Metallurgy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
  939.  
  940. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  941.  
  942. Standard source for China’s iron and steel industry. Chapters 7 and 8 deal with the Song economic revolution and with further expansion under the Ming dynasty. Questions 19th-century eyewitness accounts as representing a period when the industry had declined under competition from imported iron.
  943.  
  944. Find this resource:
  945.  
  946. Trade and Commerce
  947. China was very far from a “natural” economy in the late imperial period and had substantial and sophisticated monetary and domestic and foreign trade systems. Scholars have disagreed over what proportion of the national product was traded and over to what extent China had developed a national, as opposed to a regional, market. Brook 1998a and Brook 1998b present somewhat different overviews of the situation in the Ming dynasty.
  948.  
  949. Brook, Timothy. “Communications and Commerce.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 8, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 2. Edited by Frederick Wade Mote and Denis Twitchett, 579–707. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998a.
  950.  
  951. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  952.  
  953. Extensive examination of transport and communication and domestic and foreign trade in Ming China. Argues that the early Ming preference for a self-sufficient peasant economy was never realistic and increasingly gave way to commerce. For example, textile production was largely commercialized from the mid-Ming.
  954.  
  955. Find this resource:
  956.  
  957. Brook, Timothy. The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998b.
  958.  
  959. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  960.  
  961. A more extensive development of Brook 1998a. As the title suggests, the focus is on culture rather than economics, but nevertheless there is a large amount of important material on trade and commerce in the Ming dynasty, as well as extensive treatment of changes over time during that period. Focuses on perceptions and experiences of people at the time.
  962.  
  963. Find this resource:
  964.  
  965. Market System
  966. The work of G. William Skinner has dominated this topic and indeed has been among the most influential for Chinese history as a whole. It has covered both the micro level—the “standard market area” in rural China (Skinner 2001)—and the macro level—the macroregions into which Skinner believed the late imperial and modern Chinese economies were divided (Skinner 1977, cited under Regional Economies: Regionalism). Liu 1987 shows how the economy became increasingly commercialized from the 15th century onward, and Peng 2015 analyzes the emergence of a market economy. Wu 1985 is an immensely influential work that led to greater focus on the issue of markets. Shiue and Keller 2007 examines the height of market development in the late 18th century, and Niu 2008 and Li 2010 offer a less statistical analysis from a Chinese perspective.
  967.  
  968. Li Bozhong 李伯重. “Shijiu shiji chuqi Zhongguo quanguo shichang: Guimo yu kongjian jiegou” (十九世纪初期中国全国市场: 规模与空间结构). Zhejiang xuekan 浙江学刊 4 (2010): 5–14.
  969.  
  970. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  971.  
  972. Examination of the scale and spatial structure of China’s national market in the early 19th century.
  973.  
  974. Find this resource:
  975.  
  976. Liu Shiji 刘石吉. Ming-Qing shidai Jiangnan shizhen yanjiu (明清时代江南市镇研究). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1987.
  977.  
  978. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  979.  
  980. Important work on market towns in Jiangnan during the Ming and Qing dynasties by a scholar from Taiwan, leading the way in a focus on basic-level markets and market towns. Shows that the number of markets grew from the 15th century onward, with a rapid acceleration in the 19th century.
  981.  
  982. Find this resource:
  983.  
  984. Niu Guanjie 牛贯杰. 17–19 shiji Zhongguo de shichang yu jingji fazhan (17–19 世纪中国的市场与经济发展). Hefei, China: Huangshan shushe, 2008.
  985.  
  986. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  987.  
  988. A study of Chinese market development in the height of the Qing dynasty focusing on issues such as the emergence of a national market. A lot of material on the development of transport routes. Also deals with merchant groups.
  989.  
  990. Find this resource:
  991.  
  992. Peng Kaixiang 彭凯翔. Cong jiaoyi dao shichang: Chuantong Zhongguo minjian jingji mailuo shitan (从交易到市场: 传统中国民间经济脉络试探). Hangzhou, China: Zhejiang Daxue Chubanshe, 2015.
  993.  
  994. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  995.  
  996. Important and sophisticated study of traditional China’s market system; substantial use of (micro) quantitative analysis. Major sections on the rhythm of exchange, the formation of price signals, the reality (shitai 实态) of exchange, market exchange and resource allocation, and the embedding of the market. Emphasizes the importance of non-state actors. Focuses on the logic of the market rather than any macro estimates.
  997.  
  998. Find this resource:
  999.  
  1000. Shiue, Carol H., and Wolfgang Keller. “Markets in China and Europe on the Eve of the Industrial Revolution.” American Economic Review 97.4 (2007): 1189–1216.
  1001.  
  1002. DOI: 10.1257/aer.97.4.1189Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1003.  
  1004. Important econometric comparison of Chinese and European markets. Concludes that Chinese grain markets were as efficient and well functioning as western European (though not British) ones around 1770. This suggests that well-functioning markets might be a necessary condition but are not a sufficient condition for successful industrialization.
  1005.  
  1006. Find this resource:
  1007.  
  1008. Skinner, G. William. Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 2001.
  1009.  
  1010. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1011.  
  1012. Originally published in Journal of Asian Studies 24.1 (1964): 3–43, 24.2 (1965): 195–228, and 24.3 (1965): 363–399. Immensely influential work outlining the basic nature and dynamics of China’s local marketing system in late imperial and modern times. Operates at a fairly high level of abstraction (hexagonal units on a flat, undifferentiated plain) but is required reading.
  1013.  
  1014. Find this resource:
  1015.  
  1016. Wu Chengming 吴承明. Zhongguo zibenzhuyi yu guonei shichang (中国资本主义与国内市场). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1985.
  1017.  
  1018. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1019.  
  1020. The doyen of his generation of economic historians, Wu was crucial in directing debate away from “embryonic capitalism” toward distribution and market formation. This collection of his essays contains seminal work on market and capitalism both in premodern and modern China.
  1021.  
  1022. Find this resource:
  1023.  
  1024. Business Organization
  1025. Despite increased interest in traditional business practices following the success of the Chinese economy and of the economies of other Chinese-speaking countries or countries with a background in Confucian culture, this remains a much understudied field, especially in relation to China before the onset of modernization. Zelin 2013 offers a very useful introduction to key patterns, also examining changes in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Wilson and Yang 2016 analyzes “native” banks in the last decades of the Qing. Pomeranz 1997 raises major issues in the context of a detailed case study, while Zelin, et al. 2004 focuses on the key question of contracts.
  1026.  
  1027. Pomeranz, Kenneth. “‘Traditional’ Chinese Business Forms Revisited: Family, Firm, and Financing in the History of the Yutang Company of Jining, 1779–1956.” Late Imperial China 18.1 (1997): 1–38.
  1028.  
  1029. DOI: 10.1353/late.1997.0008Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1030.  
  1031. Combines a very clear outline of the stereotypes and issues in the study of traditional Chinese business practices with a fascinating case study of a pickle-manufacturing company in Shandong over two centuries. The author himself raises the question of how typical the case study is in light of the paucity of sources for other such cases.
  1032.  
  1033. Find this resource:
  1034.  
  1035. Wilson, Craig, and Fan Yang. “Shanxi Piaohao and Shanghai Qianzhuang: A Comparison of the Two Main Banking Systems of Nineteenth-Century China.” Business History 58.3 (2016): 433–452.
  1036.  
  1037. DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2015.1122711Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1038.  
  1039. A detailed comparison of the business models and organization of the two main types of banks in 19th-century China. Though both originated before 1840, both flourished to the greatest extent in the last decades of the Qing dynasty.
  1040.  
  1041. Find this resource:
  1042.  
  1043. Zelin, Madeleine. “Chinese Business Practice in the Late Imperial Period.” Enterprise and Society 14.4 (2013): 769–793.
  1044.  
  1045. DOI: 10.1093/es/kht087Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1046.  
  1047. Important survey article, covering both micro practices (use of contracts, etc.) and more macro phenomena such as merchant groups and guilds. Argues that, although the hand of the state was light in late imperial China, the growth of the guilds was closely linked to the state’s revenue requirements.
  1048.  
  1049. Find this resource:
  1050.  
  1051. Zelin, Madeleine, Jonathan K. Ocko, and Robert Gardella, eds. Contract and Property in Early Modern China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004.
  1052.  
  1053. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1054.  
  1055. The first half of the book examines the issue of property rights in general, while the second half more specifically looks at business practices, including articles on salt by Zelin and Man Bun Kwan and urban property contracts in Shanghai by Feng Shaoting.
  1056.  
  1057. Find this resource:
  1058.  
  1059. Merchant Groups and Guilds
  1060. Scholars both inside and outside China have devoted considerable attention to merchant groups and organizations. Fu 1956 is the classic Chinese Marxist study of Chinese merchants in late imperial China, and Niida Noboru’s work (see Niida 1950) has also been very influential. Merchant guilds, as described in Moll-Murata 2008, are often compared with medieval merchant guilds in the West. A somewhat distinctive feature of the Chinese situation was the emergence of merchant groups generally based on a specific place of origin. Ng 1983 examines Amoy merchants. Rowe 1984 analyzes things from the other end, the various groups of sojourner merchants operating in Hankou in the 19th century. Mann 1987 is an influential study of the relationship between merchants and the elite.
  1061.  
  1062. Fu Yiling 傅衣凌. Ming-Qing shidai shangren ji shangye ziben (明清时代商人及商业资本). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1956.
  1063.  
  1064. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1065.  
  1066. A classic study of merchants and merchant capital in Ming-Qing China. Chapters on the Huizhou, Dongting, Fujian, Shaanxi, Xiamen, and Southeast Asia merchant groups. While operating overall in a Marxist framework, Fu was influential in his careful methodology, use of unconventional source materials, and use of social-science theories.
  1067.  
  1068. Find this resource:
  1069.  
  1070. Mann, Susan. Local Merchants and the Chinese Bureaucracy, 1750–1950. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987.
  1071.  
  1072. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1073.  
  1074. Leading English-language study of the merchant class. Focuses on the local marketplace and on tax farming as a locus of struggle between different interests. Traces the origin of 20th-century state building to changes in market organization resulting from the new lijin tax in the second half of the 19th century.
  1075.  
  1076. Find this resource:
  1077.  
  1078. Moll-Murata, Christine. “Chinese Guilds from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Centuries: An Overview.” International Review of Social History 53.S16 (2008): 213–247.
  1079.  
  1080. DOI: 10.1017/S0020859008003672Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1081.  
  1082. Comprehensive and up-to-date survey of work in Chinese and European languages on the guilds; concludes that similarities with European guilds were greater than the differences.
  1083.  
  1084. Find this resource:
  1085.  
  1086. Ng Chin-keong. Trade and Society: The Amoy Network on the China Coast, 1683–1735. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1983.
  1087.  
  1088. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1089.  
  1090. Study of the development of a southern Fujian (Quanzhou, Xiamen, Zhangzhou) maritime trading network, focused partly on Taiwan. Familial and other networks underlay the development of this trade, which expanded from luxuries to staple goods and became increasingly specialized.
  1091.  
  1092. Find this resource:
  1093.  
  1094. Niida Noboru 仁井田陞. “The Industrial and Commercial Guilds of Peking and Religion and Fellowcountrymanship as Elements of Their Coherence.” Translated by M. Eder. Folklore Studies 9 (1950): 179–206.
  1095.  
  1096. DOI: 10.2307/1177403Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1097.  
  1098. Introduction to Niida’s work on Chinese guilds, with special reference to Beijing. Niida was Japan’s leading historian of Chinese law, and a more extensive exposition of his studies is in his Chūgoku no shakai to girudo (中国の社会とギルド) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1951).
  1099.  
  1100. Find this resource:
  1101.  
  1102. Rowe, William T. Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984.
  1103.  
  1104. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1105.  
  1106. Major work on late imperial Chinese trade and cities. Covers the salt and tea trades and finance. There was an overall trend toward privatization of the economy. Socioeconomic pluralism showed in the rise of new merchant groups. Merchant guilds were increasingly inclusive, citywide, and important for urban governance.
  1107.  
  1108. Find this resource:
  1109.  
  1110. The Monetary System
  1111. Scholars have studied the monetary system of late imperial China, of which Peng 1994 is the most general treatment, for a number of reasons. First, the system’s very complexity, with many local variations and an overarching parallelism of silver and copper money (see Vogel 1987), has been held to have been a barrier to economic activity. Second, the massive expansion of the use of silver from the 16th century onward signaled a step increase in China’s integration into the world economy (see Deng 2008, Von Glahn 1996, Von Glahn 2003). Finally, currency dislocation played an important part in causing the mid-19th-century upheavals in Chinese society (see Lin 2006, cited under Economic Thought).
  1112.  
  1113. Deng, Kent G. (Deng Gang). “Miracle or Mirage? Foreign Silver, China’s Economy and Globalization from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries.” Pacific Economic Review 13.3 (2008): 320–357.
  1114.  
  1115. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0106.2008.00404.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1116.  
  1117. Argues both that China’s silver imports between the 16th and 19th centuries, at only about one-fifth of Latin American production, were less important for the global economy and that silver played a smaller role in China’s economy than is posited in much of the literature.
  1118.  
  1119. Find this resource:
  1120.  
  1121. Peng Xinwei 彭信威. A Monetary History of China. Translated by Edward H. Kaplan. Bellingham: Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 1994.
  1122.  
  1123. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1124.  
  1125. Translation of an earlier edition of the standard Chinese monetary history up to the end of the imperial period, more recently published as Zhongguo huobi shi (中国货币史) (Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 2007). For each dynasty it examines the monetary system, value of money, monetary thought, and credit institutions. Emphasizes the continuing role of copper over a long period.
  1126.  
  1127. Find this resource:
  1128.  
  1129. Vogel, Hans Ulrich. “Chinese Central Monetary Policy, 1644–1800.” Late Imperial China 8.2 (1987): 1–52.
  1130.  
  1131. DOI: 10.1353/late.1987.0013Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1132.  
  1133. Characterizes the Qing monetary system as “a bimetallic system of parallel standard,” with separate copper and silver circulation and only the former falling under direct control by the state. Extensive appendices on issues such as copper-silver exchange rates.
  1134.  
  1135. Find this resource:
  1136.  
  1137. Von Glahn, Richard. Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
  1138.  
  1139. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1140.  
  1141. Focuses on the centuries-long transition from a bronze coin–based currency to a silver economy. Key themes include the relative importance of state and market in determining monetary trends and the importance of the demand for and supply of money.
  1142.  
  1143. Find this resource:
  1144.  
  1145. Von Glahn, Richard. “Money Use in China and Changing Patterns of Global Trade in Monetary Metals, 1500–1800.” In Global Connections and Monetary History, 1470–1800. Edited by Dennis O. Flynn, Arturo Giráldez, and Richard Von Glahn, 187–205. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003.
  1146.  
  1147. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1148.  
  1149. Review of the situation up to 1800. Key points include that domestic rather than international factors were the primary determinants of China’s economic and monetary systems and that there was no uniform trend toward silver or more “modern” monetary instruments, with bronze coins making a comeback in the 18th century.
  1150.  
  1151. Find this resource:
  1152.  
  1153. Prices
  1154. The behavior of prices is a key indicator of how well a market system is functioning, as indicated by the degree of regional integration and price stability. The other major issue focuses on the secular rise in prices during the 18th century and whether one should interpret that, as does Peng 2006, primarily in terms of the quantity theory of money and thence China’s imports of silver or in terms of the increasing pressure of a growing population on limited resources. Ch’üan and Kraus 1975 is a pioneering study, and Wang 1992 is an example of the author’s very substantial body of work on Qing prices. Cheung 2008 is an important new contribution. Kishimoto 1997 is by the leading Japanese scholar writing on Qing prices, and it addresses both major issues. The general conclusion is that price movements were similar across different regions, at least of central and coastal China, indicating a well-functioning market system. Most studies focus on commodity, particularly rice, prices; Raff, et al. 2013 on real estate is an exception.
  1155.  
  1156. Cheung, Sui-wai. The Price of Rice: Market Integration in Eighteenth-Century China. Bellingham: Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 2008.
  1157.  
  1158. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1159.  
  1160. Emphasizes the limited degree of integration of the Chinese market. The Beijing market was not open to commercial rice imports because of the domination of tribute grain, while the lower Yangzi needed to import rice only in years of relatively poor weather. Prices were strongly influenced by the harvest.
  1161.  
  1162. Find this resource:
  1163.  
  1164. Ch’üan Han-sheng (Quan Hansheng 全漢昇) and Richard A. Kraus. Mid-Ch’ing Rice Markets and Trade: An Essay in Price History. Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1975.
  1165.  
  1166. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1167.  
  1168. Quan was the leading economic historian of China outside the People’s Republic of China. This book examines the nature and reliability of the Chinese price-reporting system and uses the resulting data to argue that the Chinese market mechanism and technology were much more sophisticated than previously believed. Extensive appendices present price data.
  1169.  
  1170. Find this resource:
  1171.  
  1172. Kishimoto Mio 岸本美緒. Shindai Chūgoku no bukka to keizai hendō (清代中国の物価と経済変動). Tokyo: Kenbun shuppan, 1997.
  1173.  
  1174. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1175.  
  1176. Important collection of studies on Qing prices and society, including reviews of price studies, a consideration of the concept of moral economy with relation to China, analyses of rice and other (cotton, silk, land, labor) prices in Jiangnan, and links between price changes and broader economic fluctuations.
  1177.  
  1178. Find this resource:
  1179.  
  1180. Peng Kaixiang 彭凯翔. Qingdai yilai de liangjia: Lishixue de jieshi yu zaijieshi （清代以来的粮价： 历史学的解释与再解释）. Shanghai: Renmin Chubanshe, 2006.
  1181.  
  1182. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1183.  
  1184. Recent and sophisticated study of grain prices during (and after) the Qing dynasty. Argues that currency factors rather than population pressure were responsible for the secular rise in prices over the 18th century. The sources and some of the ideas are introduced in English in Lu Feng and Peng Kaixiang, “A Research on China’s Long-Term Rice Prices (1644–2000),” Frontiers of Economics in China 4 (2006): 465–520.
  1185.  
  1186. Find this resource:
  1187.  
  1188. Raff, Daniel, Susan Wachter, and Se Yan. “Real Estate Prices in Beijing, 1644–1840.” Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013): 368–386.
  1189.  
  1190. DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2012.10.003Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1191.  
  1192. Uses hedonic models and regression analysis to generate a time series (by twenty-five-year blocks) from 498 sale contracts in Beijing. After a sharp rise in the late 17th and a sharp fall in the early 18th century, for the next century real price levels were fairly stable. Prices were substantially lower in relation to wages than in Beijing today.
  1193.  
  1194. Find this resource:
  1195.  
  1196. Wang Yeh-chien. “Secular Trends of Rice Prices in the Yangzi Delta, 1638–1935.” In Chinese History in Economic Perspective. Edited by Thomas G. Rawski and Lillian M. Li, 35–68. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
  1197.  
  1198. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1199.  
  1200. One of the broader and more accessible of Wang’s many important price studies. Shows that, after a decline in the mid-17th century, prices rose over the long 18th century. They peaked around the 1820s and then declined for half a century before resuming even more rapid growth.
  1201.  
  1202. Find this resource:
  1203.  
  1204. Foreign Trade
  1205. Deng 1997 presents the broadest overview, while Chan 2008, Schottenhammer 2000, Shiba 1983, and Wheatley 1959 cover the Song dynasty. Studies of China’s foreign trade after the Song have changed focus several times. First the emphasis was mainly on Sino-British trade in the lead-up to the Opium Wars, of which Dermigny 1964 remains the most comprehensive treatment. Then, partly as a result of the research by the Chinese historian Quan Hansheng (Ch’üan 1975), much attention was paid to China’s involvement in a world economy, particularly through its imports of silver from Spanish America either via Europe or via Manila. Kishimoto 1997 attempts very roughly to quantify trends in trade for the 17th and 18th centuries.
  1206.  
  1207. Chan, Kenneth S. “Foreign Trade, Commercial Policies and the Political Economy of the Song and Ming Dynasties of China.” Australian Economic History Review 48.1 (2008): 68–90.
  1208.  
  1209. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8446.2007.00224.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1210.  
  1211. Following Douglass North, this work develops a formal neo-institutional model to explore the differences between “pro-efficiency” and “pro-authority” trade policies. Argues that Song and late Ming policies encouraged private trade and were pro-efficiency; the early Ming empire adopted pro-authority policies that concentrated on government control of trade.
  1212.  
  1213. Find this resource:
  1214.  
  1215. Ch’üan Han-sheng (Quan Hansheng 全漢昇). “The Chinese Silk Trade with Spanish America from the Late Ming to the Mid-Ch’ing Period.” In Studia Asiatica: Essays in Asian Studies in Felicitation of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of Professor Ch’en Shou-yi. Edited by Laurence G. Thompson, 99–117. San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1975.
  1216.  
  1217. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1218.  
  1219. An English-language summary of some of the much more extensive work by one of China’s leading economic historians. See also Quan Hansheng, Zhongguo jingji shi luncong (中國經濟史論叢), 2 vols. (Hong Kong: Xinya yanjiusuo, 1972).
  1220.  
  1221. Find this resource:
  1222.  
  1223. Deng, Gang. Chinese Maritime Activities and Socioeconomic Development, c. 2100 B.C.–1900 A.D. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997.
  1224.  
  1225. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1226.  
  1227. Ambitious and stimulating overview of China’s maritime activities through history. Attempts quantification of size of maritime shipping fleet and trade activities; argues against the Confucian/physiocratic orthodoxy that Chinese people took to trade only because of overcrowding or lack of land; identifies path dependency as a key constraint on further development.
  1228.  
  1229. Find this resource:
  1230.  
  1231. Dermigny, Louis. La chine et l’Occident: Le commerce à Canton au XVIIIe siècle, 1719–1833. 4 vols. Paris: SEVPEN, 1964.
  1232.  
  1233. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1234.  
  1235. Massive analysis of the Sino-Western trade, centering on the port of Guangzhou and chronicling the replacement of tea by opium and cotton as the major trading commodities. Inspired by Fernand Braudel and the Annales school, its use of Western sources is stronger than that of Chinese (or Japanese) sources.
  1236.  
  1237. Find this resource:
  1238.  
  1239. Kishimoto Mio 岸本美緒. Shindai Chūgoku no bukka to keizai hendō (清代中国の物価と経済変動). Tokyo: Kenbun shuppan, 1997.
  1240.  
  1241. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1242.  
  1243. Chapter 5 attempts to outline as far as possible the quantitative trends in China’s foreign trade with Russia, Korea, Japan, Manila, Southeast Asia, and Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. The chapter also deals with the impact of that trade on Ming and Qing society, especially the villages.
  1244.  
  1245. Find this resource:
  1246.  
  1247. Schottenhammer, Angela, ed. The Emporium of the World: Maritime Quanzhou, 1000–1400. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
  1248.  
  1249. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1250.  
  1251. Important series of studies on the most important center for China’s foreign trade in the Song period. Includes studies of the influence of the Imperial Clan (John Chaffee), social change (Hugh R. Clark), metals and paper money (Schottenhammer), and the ceramics boom (Ho Chuimei).
  1252.  
  1253. Find this resource:
  1254.  
  1255. Shiba Yoshinobu. “Sung Foreign Trade: Its Scope and Organization.” In China among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th–14th Centuries. Edited by Morris Rossabi, 89–115. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
  1256.  
  1257. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1258.  
  1259. After outlining the medieval Chinese commercial revolution, presents an authoritative survey that puts as much emphasis on overland as on maritime trade.
  1260.  
  1261. Find this resource:
  1262.  
  1263. Wheatley, Paul. “Geographical Notes on Some Commodities Involved in Sung Maritime Trade.” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 32.2 (1959): 1–140.
  1264.  
  1265. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1266.  
  1267. Classic and detailed study of Song-period trade with Southeast Asia.
  1268.  
  1269. Find this resource:
  1270.  
  1271. China in the World and Regional Economies
  1272. China’s involvement in a world economy, particularly through its imports of silver from Spanish America, has become of increasing interest, and Atwell 1998 is the most convenient summation of the issues. There is substantial dispute over to what extent there was an integrated world economy and, if there was, what China’s position was in it—as determinant of key trends or as largely dependent on trends elsewhere. Frank 1998 is the most influential exponent of China’s centrality in the world economy up to 1800. More recently, scholars are increasingly focusing on an East (and Southeast) Asia trade system centered on China, but in which Europeans were marginal players until well into the 19th century. The Japanese historian Hamashita Takeshi (Hamashita 2008) has been one of the pioneers of this view, which also informs Schottenhammer 2007.
  1273.  
  1274. Atwell, William S. “Ming China and the Emerging World Economy, c. 1470–1650.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 8, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 2. Edited by Frederick Wade Mote and Denis Twitchett, 376–416. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  1275.  
  1276. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1277.  
  1278. Detailed analysis of Ming foreign trade, including exports of silk and porcelain and the import of silver. Emphasizes the greatly increased links between China and the world economy in this period and the importance of silver in bringing about changes in the Chinese economy.
  1279.  
  1280. Find this resource:
  1281.  
  1282. Frank, Andre Gunder. ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
  1283.  
  1284. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1285.  
  1286. Influential and stimulating though controversial rejection of Eurocentric history and theories of development centered on Europe. Argues for centrality of China and other areas of Asia and a marginal or minor role for Europe in the world economy up to at least 1700.
  1287.  
  1288. Find this resource:
  1289.  
  1290. Hamashita Takeshi 濱下武志. China, East Asia, and the Global Economy: Regional and Historical Perspectives. Edited by Linda Grove and Mark Selden. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2008.
  1291.  
  1292. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1293.  
  1294. Collection of papers by one of Japan’s leading historians about China’s foreign trade up to the 19th century. Deals with the tribute system, the treaty port networks, and opium and silver. Focuses on China in the East Asian regional system. Challenges both Marxist and modernization perspectives. In Japanese, see Kindai chūgoku no kokusaiteki keiki: Chōkō shisutemu to kindai Ajia (近代中国の国際的契機: 朝貢システムと近代アジア) (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1990).
  1295.  
  1296. Find this resource:
  1297.  
  1298. Schottenhammer, Angela, ed. The East Asian Maritime World, 1400–1800: Its Fabrics of Power and Dynamics of Exchanges. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2007.
  1299.  
  1300. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1301.  
  1302. Includes an extensive overview chapter by Schottenhammer covering the maritime trade of China, Japan, the Ryukyus, and Korea, concluding with a section on the East Asian “Mediterranean” as a supraregional commercial zone. A useful chapter by Ng Chin-keong also surveys levels of Qing knowledge of the maritime world.
  1303.  
  1304. Find this resource:
  1305.  
  1306. Population and Environment
  1307. Issues of population and the environment have attracted attention because of their intrinsic importance, because (at least in the case of population) substantial amounts of data are available in official sources, and above all because their legacy has major modern relevance. Both long-term trends and short-term disasters and catastrophes have been important subjects for study.
  1308.  
  1309. Population
  1310. The substantial amount of population data in official Chinese sources has not produced agreement over more than the broadest outlines of China’s population history. Liang 2008 has been very influential inside and outside China, while the last four volumes of Ge 2002–2005 provide the most up-to-date understanding of the issues in China. In the West, Ho 1959 is the pioneering work that still has not fully been superseded, though Skinner 1987 gives a more skeptical take on some of the 19th-century numbers. A key matter of debate has been to what extent China’s population history has followed Malthusian patterns. Chao 1986 is a stimulating though controversial attempt to link population and land issues. Lavely and Wong 1998 is an overview of the literature, and Lee and Wang 1999 and Harrell 1995 are the major micro studies.
  1311.  
  1312. Chao, Kang (Zhao Gang 赵冈). Man and Land in Chinese History: An Economic Analysis. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986.
  1313.  
  1314. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1315.  
  1316. Key conclusions include that China’s population history is basically Malthusian, with unrestricted growth during periods of peace and sharp decline because of catastrophic events (sometimes natural but more often military) in between and that living standards peaked in the Song dynasty and declined steeply thereafter. Stimulating arguments, though some scholars have questioned their evidential base.
  1317.  
  1318. Find this resource:
  1319.  
  1320. Ge Jianxiong 葛剑雄, ed. Zhongguo renkou shi (中国人口史). 6 vols. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2002–2005.
  1321.  
  1322. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1323.  
  1324. Massive study of the sources and figures for China’s population history, including issues such as levels of urbanization and the regional distribution of population. Volumes 4 and 5, on the Ming and Qing dynasties, written by the demographer Cao Shuji 曹树基, are particularly noteworthy. Cao argues that population growth in the mid-Qing has been exaggerated.
  1325.  
  1326. Find this resource:
  1327.  
  1328. Harrell, Stevan, ed. Chinese Historical Microdemography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
  1329.  
  1330. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1331.  
  1332. Micro studies of a number of individual lineages. Concludes that marital fertility was relatively high and constant and that population fluctuations resulted from changes in mortality.
  1333.  
  1334. Find this resource:
  1335.  
  1336. Ho, Ping-ti. Studies on the Population of China, 1368–1953. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.
  1337.  
  1338. DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674184510Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1339.  
  1340. Pioneering work examining China’s population data, pressure on land, migration, food production, and catastrophic deterrents. Data are relatively reliable for the early Ming and around 1800 (but see Skinner 1987). After a massive increase in population during the 18th century, Chinese officials expressed alarm at the danger of overpopulation.
  1341.  
  1342. Find this resource:
  1343.  
  1344. Lavely, William, and R. Bin Wong. “Revising the Malthusian Narrative: The Comparative Study of Population Dynamics in Late Imperial China.” Journal of Asian Studies 57.3 (1998): 714–748.
  1345.  
  1346. DOI: 10.2307/2658739Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1347.  
  1348. Challenges the Malthusian view on China that population growth was a function of mortality, that population growth produced poverty and misery through overpopulation, and that preventive checks to population growth were weak. Female infanticide was systematically practiced across the social scale.
  1349.  
  1350. Find this resource:
  1351.  
  1352. Lee, James Z., and Wang Feng. One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700–2000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
  1353.  
  1354. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1355.  
  1356. Argues that China’s population history should not be seen in Malthusian terms but that historically China’s people have used a wide range of sophisticated methods (including but not limited to female infanticide) to control the size of their families. Population trends were determined by preventive, not positive, checks.
  1357.  
  1358. Find this resource:
  1359.  
  1360. Liang Fangzhong 梁方仲. Zhongguo lidai hukou tiandi tianfu tongji (中国历代户口田地田赋统计). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2008.
  1361.  
  1362. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1363.  
  1364. Originally published in 1980, this was a pioneering work of Chinese economic history by one of China’s leading historians, in terms both of the collection of statistics and of its review of work on Chinese economic history in the introduction.
  1365.  
  1366. Find this resource:
  1367.  
  1368. Skinner, G. William. “Sichuan’s Population in the Nineteenth Century: Lessons from Disaggregated Data.” Late Imperial China 8.1 (1987): 1–79.
  1369.  
  1370. DOI: 10.1353/late.1987.0008Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1371.  
  1372. Very careful analysis of the local data for Sichuan. Argues that while at first the data did reflect the actual population, increasingly officials just submitted figures that had little basis in reality. A must-read for anyone using official population data.
  1373.  
  1374. Find this resource:
  1375.  
  1376. Migration
  1377. Despite Confucian stereotypes of a peasantry closely tied into the villages of their births, in fact in many periods of Chinese history there have been massive population movements locally and interregionally. For the general picture, see Ge 1997. The big story of the 18th century was the filling up of the Yangzi highlands, often by Hakka people (Leong 1997), and of the Southwest (Lee 1982). By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as described in Reardon-Anderson 2005, earlier migration to Manchuria swelled to reach tens of millions of people.
  1378.  
  1379. Ge Jianxiong 葛剑雄, ed. Zhongguo yimin shi (中国移民史). 6 vols. Fuzhou, China: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1997.
  1380.  
  1381. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1382.  
  1383. Authoritative study of the history of migration in China. Closely parallels Ge 2002–2005 (cited under Population), with many of the same authors; for example, Cao Shuji on the Qing and republican periods. The last three volumes cover the period of this bibliography.
  1384.  
  1385. Find this resource:
  1386.  
  1387. Lee, James Z. “Food Supply and Population Growth in Southwest China, 1250–1850.” In Special Issue: Food, Famine, and the Chinese State—A Symposium. Journal of Asian Studies 41.4 (1982): 711–746.
  1388.  
  1389. DOI: 10.2307/2055447Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1390.  
  1391. Study of migration to Southwest China to take advantage of opportunities offered by mining and urbanization. Challenges the agrarian paradigm of the late imperial economy. Argues that increased demand from industrial workers in the core stimulated agricultural production in the periphery.
  1392.  
  1393. Find this resource:
  1394.  
  1395. Leong, Sow-Theng. Migration and Ethnicity in Chinese History: Hakkas, Pengmin, and Their Neighbors. Edited by Tim Wright. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.
  1396.  
  1397. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1398.  
  1399. Introduction by G. William Skinner. Part 2 deals with settlement of the pengmin (棚民, shed people), many of whom were Hakka, in marginal upland areas of the Gan, lower Yangzi, and middle Yangzi macroregions, in response to macroregional economic cycles. Chapter 8 describes environmental degradation resulting from the peopling of the lower Yangzi uplands.
  1400.  
  1401. Find this resource:
  1402.  
  1403. Reardon-Anderson, James. Reluctant Pioneers: China’s Expansion Northward, 1644–1937. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005.
  1404.  
  1405. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1406.  
  1407. Study of Chinese migration into Manchuria during the Qing and republican periods. Argues that rather than developing new forms of farming and economic organization, as happened in other frontier populations, such as in the United States, the migrants reproduced as far as possible the systems they knew from their home villages in North China.
  1408.  
  1409. Find this resource:
  1410.  
  1411. Environmental Change
  1412. The historical origins of modern China’s environmental crisis have attracted considerable attention and are inextricably linked to the expansion of population, which moved to a much higher level in the 18th century (see Marks 1998). Elvin 2010 is the best brief introduction to the issues, while Elvin and Liu 1998 and Elvin 2004 are the most comprehensive treatments, with the latter in particular focusing on perceptions and literary evidence. Pomeranz 2009 examines government preferences that influenced their response to environmental issues. Perdue 1987 is a pioneering study of the issue of land reclamation in the middle Yangzi, which remains one of the reasons for the sporadic massive floods along that river.
  1413.  
  1414. Elvin, Mark. The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
  1415.  
  1416. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1417.  
  1418. Brilliant summation of aspects of China’s environmental history, focusing on deforestation; water control; the local histories of Jiaxing, Guizhou, and Zunhua; and perceptions of the environment. Extensively uses literary sources. Argues for “technological lock-in” in late imperial China: high development of and investment in traditional technology made change difficult.
  1419.  
  1420. Find this resource:
  1421.  
  1422. Elvin, Mark. “The Environmental Impasse in Late Imperial China.” In China’s Rise in Historical Perspective. Edited by Brantly Womack, 151–169. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.
  1423.  
  1424. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1425.  
  1426. A brief introduction to the issues.
  1427.  
  1428. Find this resource:
  1429.  
  1430. Elvin, Mark, and Ts’ui-jung Liu, eds. Sediments of Time: Environment and Society in Chinese History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  1431.  
  1432. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1433.  
  1434. Very rich collection by leading scholars. Includes global and Japanese comparative perspectives. Sections on human settlement, water control, frontier ecologies, weather, diseases, and official and popular perceptions of the environment.
  1435.  
  1436. Find this resource:
  1437.  
  1438. Marks, Robert B. Tigers, Rice, Silk, and Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial South China. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  1439.  
  1440. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511511998Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1441.  
  1442. Very long-term study of the environment of Lingnan (basically Guangdong and Guangxi), focusing on late imperial times. Charts the extinction of much of the earlier fauna and emphasizes the pressure of agriculture and land clearance on the environment. Environmental crisis fed into the political and international crisis that transformed China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
  1443.  
  1444. Find this resource:
  1445.  
  1446. Perdue, Peter C. Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan, 1500–1850. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1987.
  1447.  
  1448. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1tg5gx4Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1449.  
  1450. Charts growing tensions between state interests and those of different local groups in dike building along the central Yangzi, which opened land for cultivation but increased the broader flood risk. Growing disorder and declining state capacity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries made the situation worse.
  1451.  
  1452. Find this resource:
  1453.  
  1454. Pomeranz, Kenneth. “The Transformation of China’s Environment, 1500–2000.” In The Environment and World History. Edited by Edmund Burke and Kenneth Pomeranz, 118–164. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
  1455.  
  1456. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1457.  
  1458. Important interpretative essay arguing for long-term continuities in China’s approaches to environmental issues, notably a preference for maintaining population in rural areas and a commitment to support vulnerable regions.
  1459.  
  1460. Find this resource:
  1461.  
  1462. Crises and Disasters
  1463. While most scholars emphasize the sophistication and success of the late imperial Chinese economy, there is no doubt that it suffered recurrent crises leading to great dislocation and large loss of life. Most of the damage was done by noneconomic crises, originating in military depredations, natural disasters, or climatic changes, but from the 17th century onward, China’s growing links with the world economy meant that monetary perturbations also had a considerable effect. An important focus has been to what extent general crises in China reflect broader problems, at least across the whole Northern Hemisphere, either because of climatic variations or because of changes in the supply of precious metals. Atwell 2002 focuses on the 15th century, and Atwell 1990 and Von Glahn 1996 focus on the 17th century. Janku 2007 is an attempt to come to grips with the impact of natural disasters on, in this case, mostly local economies, while Zhang 2006 is a prominent example of the substantial amount of work in China on the impact of disasters, mostly on a regional basis.
  1464.  
  1465. Atwell, William S. “A Seventeenth-Century ‘General Crisis’ in East Asia?” Modern Asian Studies 24.4 (1990): 661–682.
  1466.  
  1467. DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X00010532Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1468.  
  1469. Argues against skeptics that a “17th-century crisis” did occur in China and to a lesser extent in Japan and other areas in East Asia in the 1630s and 1640s. Attributes the crisis to a mix of climatic, volcanic, and monetary factors.
  1470.  
  1471. Find this resource:
  1472.  
  1473. Atwell, William S. “Time, Money, and the Weather: Ming China and the ‘Great Depression’ of the Mid-Fifteenth Century.” Journal of Asian Studies 61.1 (2002): 83–113.
  1474.  
  1475. DOI: 10.2307/2700190Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1476.  
  1477. Examines the economic downturn in China from the 1440s to the 1460s, which is usually interpreted in political terms. This downturn was, however, found across the Northern Hemisphere and resulted from climatic changes and lower temperatures, themselves partly the result of volcanic eruptions, and from declining supplies of precious metals.
  1478.  
  1479. Find this resource:
  1480.  
  1481. Janku, Andrea. “Towards a History of Natural Disasters in China: The Case of Linfen County.” Medieval History Journal 10.1–2 (2007): 267–301.
  1482.  
  1483. DOI: 10.1177/097194580701000210Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1484.  
  1485. Challenges views of natural disasters that link them to the Mandate of Heaven, or that postulate China is especially disaster prone. Based on local sources of one county in Shanxi, where systematic records date from the Ming dynasty. Emphasizes the importance of the political situation even for recording disasters.
  1486.  
  1487. Find this resource:
  1488.  
  1489. Von Glahn, Richard. “Myth and Reality of China’s Seventeenth-Century Monetary Crisis.” In Special Issue: Papers Presented at the Fifty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association. Journal of Economic History 56.2 (1996): 429–454.
  1490.  
  1491. DOI: 10.1017/S0022050700016508Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1492.  
  1493. Argues that there was no decline in silver imports into China in the late Ming dynasty, though there was in the last quarter of the century. The monetary theory of the “17th-century crisis” is incorrect both theoretically and empirically. Even the Kangxi crisis was due to falling demand, not to reduced silver imports.
  1494.  
  1495. Find this resource:
  1496.  
  1497. Zhang Chongwang 张崇旺. Ming-Qing shiqi Jianghuai diqu de ziran zaihai yu shehui jingji (明清时期江淮地区的自然灾害与社会经济). Fuzhou, China: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2006.
  1498.  
  1499. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1500.  
  1501. Study of natural disasters and their social impact in the Yangzi and Huai River region, one of China’s most advanced regions. Details the various types of natural disaster and their effects on demography, agriculture, and social structure. Also deals with countermeasures by state and society.
  1502.  
  1503. Find this resource:
  1504.  
  1505. State and Economy
  1506. While the predominant view in the West stresses the private nature and market organization of most of China’s late imperial economy, others in China and Japan argue that the state was the key player both in monetary and economic developments, at least up to the late Ming (see also Kamachi 1990, cited under Feudalism). Feuerwerker 1984 is the best succinct summary of the Western view, and Leonard and Watt 1992 offers a range of case studies. While accepting this general characterization, Vries 2015 stresses the weakness of the Qing state in comparison to that of Britain. Hoshi 1969 examines one of the largest state commitments, the transport of grain from the lower Yangzi to the capital. Sng 2014 examines long-term trends using formal modelling. Shi 2016 contains a large amount of data on government revenues and expenditures during the Qing. The relationship among the state, the law, and the economy is also often cited as a reason for China’s failure to develop, and Ma and van Zanden 2011 includes some important new work on this issue.
  1507.  
  1508. Feuerwerker, Albert. “The State and the Economy in Late Imperial China.” Theory and Society 13.3 (1984): 297–326.
  1509.  
  1510. DOI: 10.1007/BF00213228Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1511.  
  1512. The influence of the state was not crucial to China’s long millennium of successful growth up to the 19th century. Includes some pioneering quantitative estimates of government revenue as a proportion of GDP.
  1513.  
  1514. Find this resource:
  1515.  
  1516. Hoshi Ayao 星斌夫. The Ming Tribute Grain System. Translated by Mark Elvin. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1969.
  1517.  
  1518. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1519.  
  1520. Partial translation of the author’s Mindai sōun no kenkyū (明代漕運の研究) (Tokyo: Nihon Gakujustu Shinkōkai, 1963). A highly efficient transportation system both allowed the government to abandon the sea route to move grain to the capital and provided an important infrastructure for military transport.
  1521.  
  1522. Find this resource:
  1523.  
  1524. Leonard, Jane Kate, and John R. Watt, eds. To Achieve Security and Wealth: The Qing Imperial State and the Economy, 1644–1911. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University East Asia Program, 1992.
  1525.  
  1526. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1527.  
  1528. Papers on the Qing government’s relations with the economy, including policies toward private enterprise, handicrafts, and the people’s livelihoods in the Far West and along the Grand Canal. Argues that the productive sphere operated mainly at the local level, with little state interference, even though the state was dependent on it.
  1529.  
  1530. Find this resource:
  1531.  
  1532. Ma, Debin, and Jan Luiten van Zanden, eds. Law and Long-Term Economic Change: A Eurasian Perspective. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011.
  1533.  
  1534. DOI: 10.11126/stanford/9780804772730.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1535.  
  1536. Includes an important overview by Debin Ma on law and the economy in imperial China. Also a chapter on property rights by Mio Kishimoto.
  1537.  
  1538. Find this resource:
  1539.  
  1540. Shi, Zhihong. Central Government Silver Treasury: Revenue, Expenditure and Inventory Statistics, ca. 1667–1899. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2016.
  1541.  
  1542. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1543.  
  1544. By one of China’s leading economic historians, this book provides extensive data on Chinese government revenues and expenditures during the Qing. Based on the registers in the Palace Museum. For much of the 18th and early 19th centuries, month-by-month figures are available. This is the first in a Brill series on quantitative Chinese economic history.
  1545.  
  1546. Find this resource:
  1547.  
  1548. Sng, Tuan-Hwee. “Size and Dynastic Decline: The Principal-Agent Problem in Late Imperial China, 1700–1850.” Explorations in Economic History 54 (2014): 107–127.
  1549.  
  1550. DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2014.05.002Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1551.  
  1552. Uses formal modeling and the theoretical concept of the principal-agent problem to account for the decline of the Qing state up to the mid-19th century.
  1553.  
  1554. Find this resource:
  1555.  
  1556. Vries, Peer. State, Economy and the Great Divergence: Great Britain and China, 1680s–1850s. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.
  1557.  
  1558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1559.  
  1560. Important comparative analysis of the British and Chinese states in the 18th and 19th centuries. Based on secondary sources in the case of China. Shows the much greater capacity of the British state in relation to the Qing state, and argues this was important for Britain’s successful takeoff and China’s lack of a transition to modern economic growth in that period. See also Vries 2013, cited under the “Great Divergence” and the California School.
  1561.  
  1562. Find this resource:
  1563.  
  1564. Economic Thought
  1565. While economic thought in China has been dominated by the question of the relationship of the state to the economy, there have been various answers to that question. Zhao 2002 offers the most comprehensive study of Chinese economic thought from the earliest times up to the Opium Wars. Increasingly, scholars are finding that economic thought and economic debate among Chinese officials were highly sophisticated and numerate. Hartwell 1971 documents the Northern Song, while Kishimoto-Nakayama 1984, Dunstan 2006, and Lin 2006 review debates over the role of the state and over monetary policy in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, respectively. Rowe 2001 is a study of the major “statecraft” statesman of the Qing period. A general tendency was toward a greater emphasis on the market.
  1566.  
  1567. Dunstan, Helen. State or Merchant? Political Economy and Political Process in 1740s China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006.
  1568.  
  1569. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1tg5ptgSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1570.  
  1571. Important intellectual history of debates over state storage of grain. Debates on alternatives of distributing grain or distributing silver show a highly numerate bureaucracy understanding the advantages of market forces but overruled by an inexperienced and capricious emperor. The decline of the Qing dynasty started with Qianlong’s accession.
  1572.  
  1573. Find this resource:
  1574.  
  1575. Hartwell, Robert M. “Financial Expertise, Examinations, and the Formulation of Economic Policy in Northern Sung China.” Journal of Asian Studies 30.2 (1971): 281–314.
  1576.  
  1577. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1578.  
  1579. On the basis of a wide coverage of primary sources, the article argues for the emergence of a professional financial service in the Northern Song and stresses its influence on economic policymaking, and that this influence promoted economic growth.
  1580.  
  1581. Find this resource:
  1582.  
  1583. Kishimoto-Nakayama, Mio. “The Kangxi Depression and Early Qing Local Markets.” Modern China 10.2 (1984): 227–256.
  1584.  
  1585. DOI: 10.1177/009770048401000203Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1586.  
  1587. Uses a period of low prices in the 1660s and the 1670s to review different views of the economy among Qing thinkers. Some advocated the replacement of silver by copper (and thus a reduction in long-distance trade), while others wanted to increase the supply of currency through developing imports of silver.
  1588.  
  1589. Find this resource:
  1590.  
  1591. Lin, Man-houng (Lin Manhong 林滿紅). China Upside Down: Currency, Society, and Ideologies, 1808–1856. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006.
  1592.  
  1593. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q75Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1594.  
  1595. Argues that changes in the copper-to-silver exchange rate were crucial in dynastic decline and in destabilizing Chinese society in the early 19th century. The problems led to a lively and sophisticated debate among the Chinese literati between “interventionists” and “accommodationists” on monetary issues.
  1596.  
  1597. Find this resource:
  1598.  
  1599. Rowe, William T. Saving the World: Chen Hongmou and Elite Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
  1600.  
  1601. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1602.  
  1603. Excellent study of Chen Hongmou 陈宏谋, a leading political and economic thinker in 18th-century China. The middle section, “Creating Prosperity,” analyzes Chen’s economic thinking (section 1 outlines Chen’s intellectual development; section 3 is on politics and governance). Chen’s flexible thought is exemplified, for example, by his support of private mining enterprises.
  1604.  
  1605. Find this resource:
  1606.  
  1607. Zhao Jing 赵靖, ed. Zhongguo jingji sixiang tongshi (中国经济思想通史). Rev. ed. 4 vols. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2002.
  1608.  
  1609. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1610.  
  1611. Comprehensive and authoritative history of Chinese economic thought from the earliest times to 1840. Arranged mainly by individual authors and covers influential thinkers such as Wang Anshi, Sima Guang, Huang Zongxi, and Gu Yanwu.
  1612.  
  1613. Find this resource:
  1614.  
  1615. Taxation
  1616. A key debate relating to taxation is the overall level of state revenue as a proportion of GDP. As Hartwell 1988 shows for the Song dynasty and Wang 1973 shows for the Qing, previous views of a heavy burden of taxation on farmers and merchants have now mostly given way to the view that, overall, the hand of the state rested relatively lightly on the economy. Liu 2008 provides new estimates for the Southern Song. A second debate focuses on state capacity and the ability of the tax system to generate sufficient funds for the efficient running of the state. Liu 2015 analyzes the way the Song dynasty financed increasing military expenditures. For the Ming, Huang 1998 paints a pessimistic picture of the state’s capacity, and for the Qing, Zelin 1984 shows that over the long term, even an activist and reformist state could not overcome the agency problems involved in tax collection.
  1617.  
  1618. Hartwell, Robert M. “The Imperial Treasuries: Finance and Power in Song China.” Bulletin of Sung-Yuan Studies 20 (1988): 18–89.
  1619.  
  1620. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1621.  
  1622. Important and detailed study arguing that the tax burden during the Song dynasty was substantial but not overwhelming, stressing that “information is power” in relation to control over the tax revenues, with increasing power resting with local authorities.
  1623.  
  1624. Find this resource:
  1625.  
  1626. Huang, Ray. “The Ming Fiscal Administration.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 8, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 2. Edited by Frederick Wade Mote and Denis Twitchett, 106–171. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  1627.  
  1628. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1629.  
  1630. Building on his earlier Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Century Ming China (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974), Huang reviews the Ming fiscal system. The system was centralized at the top but lacked penetration into rural localities, and it became ever less fit for its purpose as the economy commercialized.
  1631.  
  1632. Find this resource:
  1633.  
  1634. Liu Guanglin (William Guanglin Liu) 劉光臨. “Shichang, zhanzheng he caizheng guojia: Dui Nan Song fushui wenti de zai sikao” (市場戰爭和財政國家: 對南宋賦稅問題的再思考). Taida lishi xuebao (台大歷史學報) 42 (2008): 221–285.
  1635.  
  1636. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1637.  
  1638. Focusing on the issue of the tax burden on farmers, Liu’s controversial quantitative estimates paint a picture of the Song dynasty that is substantially different from that of Li 2001 (cited under the Song Economic Revolution).
  1639.  
  1640. Find this resource:
  1641.  
  1642. Liu, William Guanglin. “The Making of a Fiscal State in Song China, 960–1279.” Economic History Review 68.1 (2015): 48–78.
  1643.  
  1644. DOI: 10.1111/ehr.12057Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1645.  
  1646. Overview of the Song fiscal systems, focusing on the dominant role of indirect tax and the emergence of government borrowing. Puts the analysis in the context of the emergence of a Schumpeterian “fiscal state.”
  1647.  
  1648. Find this resource:
  1649.  
  1650. Wang, Yeh-chien. Land Taxation in Imperial China, 1750–1911. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973.
  1651.  
  1652. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1653.  
  1654. Institutional and quantitative study of the most important tax in Qing China. Concludes that tax burdens were important causes of mid-19th-century peasant unrest but that inflation and tax remissions reduced the land tax burden toward the end of the Qing compared with mid-Qing (though other taxes became more important).
  1655.  
  1656. Find this resource:
  1657.  
  1658. Zelin, Madeleine. The Magistrate’s Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth-Century Ch’ing China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
  1659.  
  1660. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1661.  
  1662. Detailed, archive-based study focusing on 1720s reforms standardizing and making official previously extralegal supplementary fees collected from taxpayers. After some initial success, the reforms were later gradually eroded, as the dynasty failed to solve the agency problem in the collection of tax revenues from small plots of land.
  1663.  
  1664. Find this resource:
  1665.  
  1666. Governance and Famine Relief
  1667. China has a long tradition of government responsibility for providing relief for people affected by climatic or other fluctuations in the food supply. Scholars have debated the success of such measures, with both Will 1990 and Will and Wong 1991 arguing that there was substantial success, particularly during the 18th century. A further issue, both at the time and later, is suggested in the title of Li 2007: To what extent was it possible or wise to rely on the market rather than on more direct government intervention in supplying relief? A more quantitative and theoretical treatment is in Shiue 2004.
  1668.  
  1669. Li, Lillian M. Fighting Famine in North China: State, Market, and Environmental Decline, 1690s–1990s. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
  1670.  
  1671. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1672.  
  1673. Very important book focusing on the Hai River basin in North China. Contains rich materials on environmental decline and change, government water-control policies, the markets for food grains, and the changing nature of government policies for famine relief. Takes the story up to the Communist period and the 1990s.
  1674.  
  1675. Find this resource:
  1676.  
  1677. Shiue, Carol H. “Local Granaries and Central Government Disaster Relief: Moral Hazard and Intergovernmental Finance in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century China.” Journal of Economic History 64.1 (2004): 100–124.
  1678.  
  1679. DOI: 10.1017/S002205070400261XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1680.  
  1681. Quantitative study of the interregional differences in levels of grain storage, which were affected by access to market supplies and frequency of central government assistance.
  1682.  
  1683. Find this resource:
  1684.  
  1685. Will, Pierre-Étienne. Bureaucracy and Famine in Eighteenth-Century China. Translated by Elborg Forster. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990.
  1686.  
  1687. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1688.  
  1689. Examines socioeconomic contours of famine, government famine-relief operations, and the fiscal ability of the state to intervene. Stresses the “extraordinary energy and dedication” of many officials at the height of the dynasty (especially in the 1743–1744 North China famine) and the sophistication and success of efforts to combat famine.
  1690.  
  1691. Find this resource:
  1692.  
  1693. Will, Pierre-Étienne, and R. Bin Wong. Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650–1850. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1991.
  1694.  
  1695. DOI: 10.3998/mpub.19044Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1696.  
  1697. Wide-ranging institutional analysis of China’s granary system in the early and mid-Qing. Wong wrote the history of China’s grain storage before and especially during the Qing; Peter Perdue analyzed the system’s structural problems; several authors contributed spatial analysis; and Wong assessed the system’s significance for Chinese and world history.
  1698.  
  1699. Find this resource:
  1700.  
  1701. The Beginnings of Modernization in the Late 19th Century
  1702. Although nearly all the economy remained traditional up to 1895, both Chinese and Western scholars have emphasized the limited attempts at modernization that took place, often under the auspices of the state and mostly in regions along the coast, closer to foreign influences. Zhang 1982 is one of a series of studies published by the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, analyzing the parameters of modernization in individual Chinese provinces between 1860 and 1916. Though the overall judgment of these efforts has mostly been one of failure, especially in comparison to Japan’s modernization efforts following the Meiji Restoration, they nevertheless left a substantial heritage for more thorough modernization after 1895.
  1703.  
  1704. Zhang Yufa 張玉法. Zhongguo xiandaihua de quyu yanjiu: Shandong sheng, 1860–1916 (中國現代化的區域研究: 山東省1860–1916). Taibei: Academia Sinica, 1982.
  1705.  
  1706. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1707.  
  1708. This work, by one of Taiwan’s leading historians of modern China, examines aspects of economic modernization in Shandong up to 1916. Deals with political, military, and social modernization and includes a very substantial chapter on economic modernization. One of a series covering various provinces.
  1709.  
  1710. Find this resource:
  1711.  
  1712. State Policies
  1713. Wright 1957 is the classic study of the early stages of this modernization in the 1850s and the 1860s. Suzuki 1992 is a wide-ranging study going up to the late 19th century, and Li 2003 includes an examination of the most famous economic enterprise. Feuerwerker 1958 and Pong 1993 are studies of two leading players, one (Sheng Xuanhuai) directly involved in enterprise management and the other (Shen Baozhen) an official sponsor.
  1714.  
  1715. Feuerwerker, Albert. China’s Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsuan-Huai (1844–1916) and Mandarin Enterprise. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958.
  1716.  
  1717. DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674333734Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1718.  
  1719. Influential study of the largely unsuccessful story of China’s first shipping company and other enterprises run by Sheng Xuanhuai, China’s leading bureaucratic entrepreneur in the late 19th century. Locates the failures of the enterprises in the nature of bureaucratic management. More recently, scholars have put less emphasis on failure.
  1720.  
  1721. Find this resource:
  1722.  
  1723. Li Zhigang (Lai Chi-kung) 黎志剛. Zhongguo jindai de guojia yu shichang (中國近代國家與市場). Hong Kong: Xianggang jiaoyu tushu gongsi, 2003.
  1724.  
  1725. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1726.  
  1727. Collection of Li’s work on state and market in modern (mostly late-19th-century) China. Extensive studies of the China Merchants Steamship Navigation Company and of Xiangshan (Heung-san) merchant networks.
  1728.  
  1729. Find this resource:
  1730.  
  1731. Pong, David. Shen Pao-chen and China’s Modernization in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
  1732.  
  1733. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1734.  
  1735. Study of the first part of the career of one of China’s leading modernizers. Concentrates on his period as governor-general in Fujian. Emphasizes that Confucianism was compatible with advocacy of radical change. Patriotism was key to Shen’s modernizing activities, but financial difficulties undermined his Fuzhou Navy Yard.
  1736.  
  1737. Find this resource:
  1738.  
  1739. Suzuki Tomō 鈴木智夫. Yōmu undō no kenkyū (洋務運動の研究). Tokyo: Kyuko shoin, 1992.
  1740.  
  1741. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1742.  
  1743. Major Japanese study of the self-strengthening movement of the late 19th century. Chapters on the shipping, cotton, and silk industries (the latter in the lower Yangzi and in Guangdong) and on the modernization of diplomacy.
  1744.  
  1745. Find this resource:
  1746.  
  1747. Wright, Mary Clabaugh. The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T’ung-Chih Restoration, 1862–1874. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1957.
  1748.  
  1749. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1750.  
  1751. Not predominantly an economic history, but it remains the classic study of the first stage of the self-strengthening movement. Chapters 8 and 9 deal with economic rehabilitation and military self-strengthening.
  1752.  
  1753. Find this resource:
  1754.  
  1755. The Private and Foreign Sectors
  1756. Although scholars have focused mainly on the more prominent initiatives of the official self-strengtheners, China’s private sector was strong and dynamic, able both to resist foreign intrusion (see, for example, Brown 1978) and to collaborate with foreigners to form new social organizations. See Hao 1986 on the emergence of a synergistic capitalism involving both Western and Chinese merchants along the coast. Chan 1977 focuses mainly on merchant-official relationships. As Godley 1981 suggests, overseas Chinese businesspeople were potentially important, though they really came to play a major role only from the 1980s, not the 1880s. Brown 1981 and Ma 2005 deal with issues of technology transfer.
  1757.  
  1758. Brown, Shannon R. “The Partially Opened Door: Limitations on Economic Change in China in the 1860s.” Modern Asian Studies 12.2 (1978): 177–192.
  1759.  
  1760. DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X00006077Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1761.  
  1762. Influential article on China’s problems in absorbing and using foreign technology in the late 19th century. The impact of increased foreign contacts was “virtually insignificant” up to 1895. China’s size and poverty limited that impact, while the conservatism of the state impeded a stronger response from Chinese businesspeople.
  1763.  
  1764. Find this resource:
  1765.  
  1766. Brown, Shannon R. “Cakes and Oil: Technology Transfer and Chinese Soybean Processing, 1860–1895.” In Special Issue: The Transfer of Technology. Comparative Studies in Society and History 23.3 (1981): 449–463.
  1767.  
  1768. DOI: 10.1017/S001041750001344XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1769.  
  1770. Important study of late-19th-century Western attempts to set up modern soybean processing in China. Up to 1895, vested interests were strong enough to resist the introduction of modern technology either by foreigners or by Chinese.
  1771.  
  1772. Find this resource:
  1773.  
  1774. Chan, Wellington K. K. Merchants, Mandarins, and Modern Enterprise in Late Ch’ing China. Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1977.
  1775.  
  1776. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1tg5jmfSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1777.  
  1778. Focuses on changes in China’s merchant class from the late 19th century onward, with competition for control between merchants and officials and between central and provincial authorities.
  1779.  
  1780. Find this resource:
  1781.  
  1782. Godley, Michael R. The Mandarin-Capitalists from Nanyang: Overseas Chinese Enterprise in the Modernization of China, 1893–1911. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
  1783.  
  1784. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511529092Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1785.  
  1786. Mainly biographical study of Zhang Bishi (Thio Thiau Siat), a leading Chinese entrepreneur mainly in Malaysia and Singapore in the late 19th century. Zhang made a twelve-point memorial to the Chinese government for modernization in 1903. Interesting as a precursor to the major role of overseas Chinese in the modern economy.
  1787.  
  1788. Find this resource:
  1789.  
  1790. Hao, Yen-p’ing. The Commercial Revolution in Nineteenth-Century China: The Rise of Sino-Western Mercantile Capitalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
  1791.  
  1792. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1793.  
  1794. Charts China’s dynamic response to Western economic penetration. Originating partly with Chinese compradors working in or for foreign firms, there developed mainly along the coast a vibrant mercantile capitalism both with Western and Chinese players. Uses the ideas of the Annales school to investigate the system that emerged.
  1795.  
  1796. Find this resource:
  1797.  
  1798. Ma, Debin. “Between Cottage and Factory: The Evolution of Chinese and Japanese Silk-Reeling Industries in the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy 10.2 (2005): 195–213.
  1799.  
  1800. DOI: 10.1080/13547860500071451Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1801.  
  1802. Explanation of Japan’s success in overtaking China in exporting silk from the late 19th century onward. Japan’s greater success in reducing transaction costs accounts for a crucial part of its success relative to China.
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