Overview
- Introduces a new theoretical framework for understanding Chinese economic history
- Presents a long-run examination of Chinese economic history from ancient China up to the present day
- Contrasts the economic development of China with the rise of more individualised economic systems in the West
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Economic History (PEHS)
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Table of contents (10 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Utilising Marxian, Weberian, and institutionalist approaches, this book proposes a new theoretical framework for understanding the nature of Chinese economic history: the ‘imperial mode’ of China. The book aims to innovatively apply a cohesive historical materialist framework to the economic evolution of China, while at the same time offering micro-analysis of China’s institutions throughout its history.
Taking a long-run perspective, from ancient China up until the present, the book aims to show how Chinese economic history can be viewed as a dynamic evolutionary process consisting of various stages. The first part of the book lays out the imperial mode as a mode of production based on China’s agricultural economy, with a structure consisting of a central authority, the bureaucratic system, and the peasantry. The second part then chronologically examines the different dynasties through this analytical lens and suggests ways in which China’s resistance to institutional changesin the early modern period has had long-lasting consequences for its economic development. The book goes on to show how the imperial mode is able to facilitate the agricultural economy, but did not foster the modern commercial and industrial economy. It integrates modern China into the long wave of economic history, showing how this imperial mode still exerts influence on China’s current path of development, as well as introducing a new way of understanding communist China from a historical perspective.
This book will have interdisciplinary appeal for researchers and students of economic history, economic development, the history of China, economic sociology, and social history more broadly.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
George Hong Jiang is an assistant researcher in the School of Economics at Peking University and also a visiting researcher in the Max Weber Institute of Sociology at Heidelberg Universität. He was previously a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. He got a doctoral degree in macroeconomics at the Department of Economic Policy and Quantitative Methods, J. W. Goethe Universität Frankfurt.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Imperial Mode of China
Book Subtitle: An Analytical Reconstruction of Chinese Economic History
Authors: George Hong Jiang
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Economic History
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27015-4
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-27014-7Published: 08 March 2023
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-27017-8Published: 08 March 2024
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-27015-4Published: 07 March 2023
Series ISSN: 2662-6497
Series E-ISSN: 2662-6500
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXIX, 332
Number of Illustrations: 6 b/w illustrations
Topics: Economic History, History of China, Economic Growth, Asian Economics