This book focuses on the production of low-quality goods, the rise of markets for imitations and shoddy goods, and dishonest trading practices which developed along with the expansion of global trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in East Asia. Fake, imitation, counterfeit, and adulterated goods have long plagued domestic and international trade. While we are all familiar with contemporary attempts to control the manufacture and sales of such goods, economic historians have given the subject little attention, despite the fact that the growth of international trade and the lengthening of commodity chains played a major role in the spread of such practices. The problem is approached in several ways. Part I of the book examines the ways in which the asymmetry of product-quality information was reduced and mechanisms were developed to bring greater order in the markets, using case studies on cotton fiber, silk pongee, cotton cloth, fertilizer, and tea. Part II of the book focuses on problems associated with imported everyday-use items-which are referred to here as "small things"-and the role played by imitations of such everyday goods as soap, matches, glass bottles, and toys in the development of the modern economies of Japan, China and Taiwan. The project brings together the work of an international team of scholars who offer important historical perspectives on these issues, exploring the ways in which new institutions were created that continue to play a role in contemporary global economic activities.

Over the last half century, China has evolved from a poor rural country to a geopolitical powerhouse. Rapid urbanization has been at the heart of that transformation, and as migrant laborers have left their villages, what has become of the rural communities that were once the center of economic, social, and cultural life? And how do contemporary Chinese scholars understand those changes? These are the questions that this compelling book answers. Lengshuigou village, located near the Shandong provincial capital of Jinan, was first studied by Japanese social scientists in the early 1940s and then again in the 1980s and 1990s. Building on these rich surveys, this book traces changes from the early twentieth century to the present day in family and lineage, social stratification, personal networks, annual and life cycle rituals, village politics, and elite formation. Drawing on their own large-scale survey of contemporary village households, the authors analyze the physical and institutional changes that have altered the community, as well as the shifts in interpersonal relations and attitudes that have upended centuries-old systems of patriarchy and generational order. This important book presents, for the first time in English, analysis by Chinese sociologists on the radical transformation of Chinese rural society.

This volume brings together an international team of scholars who examine the development of commercial networks in Asia from the 18th century to the 20th century on a stage that stretches from Yokohama and Pusan to Istanbul. The studies, based on extensive archival research, focus on the trading firms and merchant groups that were the chief actors in the creation of the commercial networks that crisscrossed Asia, linking the various Asian economies to each other and to Europe and the Americas. While some of this work has been available in Japanese, Chinese and Dutch, this is the first time that such a broad range of essays has been made available to an English-speaking audience. The thirteen essays can be roughly divided into two groups. The first group includes essays that look at the development of large scale networks and plot the competition between competing indigenous and foreign merchant groups in the trade in such products as sugar and cotton yarn in China, cotton goods in Japan, silk in Iran, Japanese manufactures in Dutch Indonesia and rice and cotton in India. The second group of essays focuses on the activities of specific firms as a way to explore the development of trading networks. This group includes essays that look at the activities of Chinese and Japanese merchants in Korea, at the growth of a commercial empire built on the sale of patent drugs in Southeast Asia and at the activities of European trading firms in Asia. The book should appeal to a wide-range audience. Most directly concerned are economic historians

Takeshi Hamashita, arguably Asia's premier historian of the longue duree, has been instrumental in opening a new field of inquiry in Chinese, East Asian and world historical research. Engaging modernization, Marxist and world system approaches, his wide-ranging redefinition of the evolving relationships between the East Asia regional system and the world economy from the sixteenth century to the present has sent ripples throughout Asian and international scholarship. His research has led him to reconceptualize the position of China first in the context of an East Asian regional order and subsequently within the framework of a wider Euro-American-Asian trade and financial order that was long gestating within, and indeed contributing to the shape of, the world market. This book presents a selection of essays from Takeshi Hamashita's oeuvre on Asian trade to introduce this important historian's work to the English speaking reader. It examines the many critical issues surrounding China and East Asia's incorporation to the world economy, including: Maritime perspectives on China, Asia and the world economy Intra-Asian trade Chinese state finance and the tributary trade system Banking and finance Maritime customs.

Takeshi Hamashita, arguably Asia's premier historian of the longue duree, has been instrumental in opening a new field of inquiry in Chinese, East Asian and world historical research. Engaging modernization, Marxist and world system approaches, his wide-ranging redefinition of the evolving relationships between the East Asia regional system and the world economy from the sixteenth century to the present has sent ripples throughout Asian and international scholarship. His research has led him to reconceptualize the position of China first in the context of an East Asian regional order and subsequently within the framework of a wider Euro-American-Asian trade and financial order that was long gestating within, and indeed contributing to the shape of, the world market. This book presents a selection of essays from Takeshi Hamashita's oeuvre on Asian trade to introduce this important historian's work to the English speaking reader. It examines the many critical issues surrounding China and East Asia's incorporation to the world economy, including: Maritime perspectives on China, Asia and the world economy Intra-Asian trade Chinese state finance and the tributary trade system Banking and finance Maritime customs.

This powerful and meticulously researched study explores the role of rural industry and entrepreneurship in the Chinese economic miracle. Linda Grove considers especially the development of the Gaoyang industrial district, China's best-known rural industrial district of the pre-World War II period. By focusing on one weaving district in North China, she is able to explore in detail the ways in which small industrial firms have accumulated capital, organized their firms, developed nationwide marketing networks, and promoted brands over the last century. Cutting across the conventional divide between studies of "history" and "contemporary economy" and between pre- and post-1949 China, the author persuasively shows the links between traditional Chinese business practices and contemporary entrepreneurial success. The first book in English to explore the world of small-scale business firms in China, it introduces the activities of individual entrepreneurs and firms and examines the structure of industrial organization that has supported the rapid growth of individual firms. Based on several decades of archival research, surveys, and fieldwork, A Chinese Economic Revolution provides an in-depth exploration of Chinese rural industry. Framed by the author's extensive familiarity with rural industrial development in Japan, India, and Europe, the book also offers important comparative perspectives for those interested in global economic history, postsocialist economic performance, and economic development strategies.

Explores the functioning of commercial networks in Asia, from the mid-19th century when transport and communications revolutions began to change those networks to the 1930s. The essays throw new light on these multi-layered, overlapping regional trading networks that transcend national borders and shaped the structure and development of the modern Asian economy and society.

Over the last half century, China has evolved from a poor rural country to a geopolitical powerhouse. Rapid urbanization has been at the heart of that transformation, and as migrant laborers have left their villages, what has become of the rural communities that were once the center of economic, social, and cultural life? And how do contemporary Chinese scholars understand those changes? These are the questions that this compelling book answers. Lengshuigou village, located near the Shandong provincial capital of Jinan, was first studied by Japanese social scientists in the early 1940s and then again in the 1980s and 1990s. Building on these rich surveys, this book traces changes from the early twentieth century to the present day in family and lineage, social stratification, personal networks, annual and life cycle rituals, village politics, and elite formation. Drawing on their own large-scale survey of contemporary village households, the authors analyze the physical and institutional changes that have altered the community, as well as the shifts in interpersonal relations and attitudes that have upended centuries-old systems of patriarchy and generational order. This important book presents, for the first time in English, analysis by Chinese sociologists on the radical transformation of Chinese rural society.

How have femininity and masculinity been defined and understood in China from prehistoric times to the present day? Gender History in China presents for the first time in English the work of leading Japanese scholars in the fields of archaeology, history, literature, sociology and law who examine the gender dynamics that have shaped and changed Chinese society over several thousand years. The eighteen chapters and six columns look at the ways gender norms and customary legal practices shaped the family, kinship, and the social order, and how those norms were reflected in work patterns, inheritance, daily life, and literary works. Attention is given to the fundamental principle of qi (material essence) as a building block in cosmology, as well as in legal understandings of family relations. The second part of the volume turns to the dramatic changes in gender patterns from the late nineteenth century, looking at the inflow of new ideas, the struggle for political rights and economic equality, and the institution of new gender norms in socialist and reform-era China. The authors take up such topics as the view of the body in relation to Chinese cosmology, the incorporation of the military man into China's model of hegemonic masculinity, the household registration system as a means of control, the appraisal of "talented women", and the intersection of gender norms and nationalism. Gender History in China enriches our understanding of Chinese history and of contemporary Chinese society.

How have femininity and masculinity been defined and understood in China from prehistoric times to the present day? Gender History in China presents for the first time in English the work of leading Japanese scholars in the fields of archaeology, history, literature, sociology and law who examine the gender dynamics that have shaped and changed Chinese society over several thousand years. The eighteen chapters and six columns look at the ways gender norms and customary legal practices shaped the family, kinship, and the social order, and how those norms were reflected in work patterns, inheritance, daily life, and literary works. Attention is given to the fundamental principle of qi (material essence) as a building block in cosmology, as well as in legal understandings of family relations. The second part of the volume turns to the dramatic changes in gender patterns from the late nineteenth century, looking at the inflow of new ideas, the struggle for political rights and economic equality, and the institution of new gender norms in socialist and reform-era China. The authors take up such topics as the view of the body in relation to Chinese cosmology, the incorporation of the military man into China's model of hegemonic masculinity, the household registration system as a means of control, the appraisal of "talented women", and the intersection of gender norms and nationalism. Gender History in China enriches our understanding of Chinese history and of contemporary Chinese society.