The Cambridge Economic History of China: Volume 1, To 1800

A comprehensive survey of Chinese economic history from the pre-imperial era to 1800 from an international team of leading experts.

Debin Ma (Edited by), Richard von Glahn (Edited by)

9781108425575, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 February 2022

732 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 3.8 cm, 1.32 kg

China's rise as the world's second-largest economy surely is the most dramatic development in the global economy since the year 2000. But China's prominence in the global economy is hardly new. Since 500 BCE, a dynamic market economy and the establishment of an enduring imperial state fostered precocious economic growth. Yet Chinese society and government featured distinctive institutions that generated unique patterns of economic development. The six chapters of Part I of this volume trace the forms of livelihood, organization of production and exchange, the role of the state in economic development, the evolution of market institutions, and the emergence of trans-Eurasian trade from antiquity to 1000 CE. Part II, in twelve thematic chapters, spans the late imperial period from 1000 to 1800 and surveys diverse fields of economic history, including environment, demography, rural and urban development, factor markets, law, money, finance, philosophy, political economy, foreign trade, human capital, and living standards.

Introduction to Volume I Debin Ma and Richard von Glahn
Part I. Before 1000: 1. The economy of late pre-imperial China: archaeological perspectives Lothar von Falkenhausen
2. Agriculture and its environmental impact Motoko Hara
3. State and economy: production, extraction, and distribution Richard von Glahn
4. Markets, money, and merchants Y?hei Kakinuma
5. Economic philosophy and political economy Richard von Glahn
6. Silk Road trade and foreign economic influences Xinru Liu
Interlude. The Tang-Song transition in Chinese economic history Richard von Glahn
Part II. 1000 to 1800: 7. Ecological change and resource constraints David A. Bello
8. Population change Shuji Cao
9. Public finance Christian Lamouroux and Richard von Glahn
10. Political economy Helen Dunstan
11. Law and the market economy Billy K. L. So and Sufumi So
12. Property rights and factor markets Mio Kishimoto
13. The rural economy Kenneth Pomeranz
14. Cities and the urban economy Harriet Zurndorfer
15. The monetary system Akinobu Kuroda
16. Merchants and commercial networks Joseph P. McDermott
17. Foreign trade Angela Schottenhammer
18. Production, consumption, and living standards Zhiwu Chen and Kaixiang Peng.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], Asian history [HBJF]