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This monumental work provides a new perspective on the historical
significance of famines in China over the past three hundred years.
It examines the relationship between the interventionist state
policies of the eighteenth-century Qing emperors ("the golden age
of famine relief"), the environmental and political crises of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (when China was called
"the Land of Famine"), and the ambitions of the Mao era (which
tragically led to the greatest famine in human history). In
addition to a wide array of documentary sources, the book employs
quantitative analysis to measure the economic impact of natural
crises, state policies, and markets. In this way, the theories of
Qing statesmen that have received much attention in recent
scholarship are linked to actual practices and outcomes. Using the
Zhili-Hebei region as its focus, the book also reveals the unusual
role played by the institutions and policies designed to ensure
food security for the capital, Beijing.
This volume marks a turning point in the study of Chinese economic
history. It arose from a realization that the economic history of
China-as opposed to the history of the Chinese economy-had yet to
be written. Most histories of the Chinese economy, whether by
Western or Chinese scholars, tend to view the economy in
institutional or social terms. In contrast, the studies in this
volume break new ground by systematically applying economic theory
and methods to the study of China. While demonstrating to
historians the advantages of an economic perspective, the
contributors, comprising both historians and economists, offer
important new insights concerning issues of long-standing interest
to both disciplines. Part One, on price behavior, presents for the
first time preliminary analyses of the incomparably rich and
important grain price data from the imperial archives in Beijing
and Taibei during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). These studies
reveal long-term trends in the Chinese economy since the
seventeenth century and contain surprising discoveries about market
integration, the agricultural economy, and demographic behavior in
different regions of China. The essays in Part Two, on market
response, deal with different aspects of the economy of Republican
China (1912-49), showing that markets for land, labor, and capital
sometimes functioned as predicted by models of economic
"rationality" but at other times behaved in ways that can be
explained only by combining economic analysis with knowledge of
political, regional, class, and gender differences. Based on new
types of data, they suggest novel interpretations of the Chinese
economic experience. The resulting collection is interdisciplinary
scholarship of a high order, which weaves together the analytic
framework provided by economic theory and the rich texture of
social phenomena gathered by accomplished historians. This title is
part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates
University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate
the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing
on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality,
peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using
print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in
1992.
Few world cities have a record as long, as fascinating, or as
well-documented as Beijing's. A capital almost continuously for
more than a thousand years, the city has been Khubilai Khan's
Mongol headquarters, home to emperors of the Ming and Qing
dynasties, and the main stage for Communist-era achievements and
upheavals. "Beijing" is the first book in English to trace this
vibrant city's history from its earliest days to the present. It
highlights recent changes in the city as its more than fifteen
million people live through record-level economic growth and
intensive preparations for the 2008 Olympics. Focusing on the lives
of ordinary residents and rulers alike, the authors examine the
controversial destruction of historic districts as well as the
construction of new residential and business districts and Olympic
venues. Extensive photographs and paintings, many not previously
published, offer a window onto Beijing not only in major phases of
its past, but also in its startlingly different present. Compelling
and revealing, Beijing arrives just in time for the city's turn in
the Olympic spotlight.
The development of modern China's most important export commodity,
silk, is traced from the opening of the treaty ports to the 1930s.
This study examines the silk industry, one of China's most advanced
traditional economic enterprises, as it moved into large-scale
trade with the West. And it especially considers whether
traditional economic organizations and practices encouraged or
inhibited the expansion of the industry and its technological
modernization. The silk industry is presented as a microcosm of
China's encounter with the modern world market, focusing on such
topics as the role of the state, the relationship between treaty
ports and rural producers, the domestic market, and the financing
and organization of the modern sector. Such important issues as the
"sprouts of capitalism" argument and Japan's assumption of first
position in the modern world silk market are authoritatively and
convincingly illuminated.
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