What The Cambridge Economic History of China Teaches Us about China and Tells Us About Economic History

Abstract

Considering the 1500+ pages making up the 39 chapters of this work on Chinese economic history from ancient times to the present, this review essay suggests ways The Cambridge Economic History of China contributes new perspectives on economic history more generally and on plausible connections between the pathways of Chinese economic change that begin in the distant past and point toward the future. The essay addresses specifically Chinese elements in its economic history and identifies the ways in which nineteenth- and twentieth-century engagement with Westerners contributed to the Chinese economy’s future development but in no comprehensive manner explain how modern Chinese economic change took place. Among the highlighted features of Chinese economic history that chapters of this work make visible are the persistent presence of state efforts to manage and shape economic activity forming a distinct tradition of political economy and the long-standing awareness of many of the relationships between population, agriculture, and the natural environment.