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2 - Economic Transition in the Nineteenth Century

from Part I - 1800–1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2022

By
William T. Rowe
Edited by
Debin Ma  and
Richard von Glahn
Debin Ma
Affiliation:
Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo
Richard von Glahn
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

The Great Qing Empire (1644–1912) was the most populous political entity that had yet existed on the landmass that we now refer to as “China,” and its economy was possibly one of the most developed. But by the first several decades of the nineteenth century, the Jiaqing and early Daoguang reigns, there had emerged a general consensus among elites both in and out of government that the empire was facing a multifaceted and potentially catastrophic crisis of the economy, polity, and society. By this point the Qing had already begun to be significantly incorporated into the early modern world economy, although it had not yet experienced, as it very shortly would, military conflict with the West and the invasion by Western agents of economic and cultural change that would follow in its wake.

Keywords

“prosperous age” (shengshi)ecological decaydemographyrice tradeever-normal granary (changping cang)salt administrationLiang–Huaimiddle Yangzi macroregionDaoguang depressionland tax (diding)
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Economic History of China , pp. 48 - 86
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Further Reading

H.-S, Chuan., and Kraus, R.A., Mid-Qing Rice Markets and Trade: An Essay in Price History (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University East Asian Monographs, 1975).Google Scholar
Wangling, Gao 高王凌, 十八世紀中國的經濟發展和政府政策 (Government Policy and Eighteenth-Century Chinese Economic Development) (Beijing, Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1995).Google Scholar
Guosheng, Huang 黃國盛, 鴉片戰爭前的東南四省海關 (Maritime Customs in China’s Four Southeastern Provinces Prior to the Opium War) (Fuzhou, Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2000).Google Scholar
Jingbin, Huang 黃敬斌, 民生與家計清初至民國時期江南居民的消費 (Popular Livelihoods and Household Budgets: Jiangnan Residents’ Expenditures from Early Qing to the Republican Era) (Shanghai, Fudan University Press, 2009).Google Scholar
Jones, S.M., and Kuhn, P.A., “Dynastic Decline and the Roots of Rebellion,” in Fairbank, J.K. (ed.), The Cambridge History of China, vol. 10, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, part 1 (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1978).Google Scholar
Akinobu, Kuroda 黑田明伸, “清代銀錢二貨制的構造 とその 崩壞” (The Structure and Collapse of Silver–Copper Bimetallism in the Qing), 社會經濟史學 (Studies in Socio-economic History) 57.2 (1992), 93–125.Google Scholar
Lee, J., and Wang, F., One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bozhong, Li, Agricultural Development in Jiangnan, 1620–1850 (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Yuping, Ni 倪玉平, 清朝嘉道財政與社會 (Government Finance and Society in the Qing Jiaqing and Daoguang Reigns) (Beijing, Commercial Press, 2013).Google Scholar
Zeyi, Peng 彭澤益, “清代前期手工業的發展” (The Development of Handicrafts in the Early Qing), 中國史研究 (Studies in Chinese History) 1981.1 43–60.Google Scholar
Perdue, P., Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan, 1500–1850 (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1987).Google Scholar
Pomeranz, K., The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2000).Google Scholar
Rowe, W.T., Speaking of Profit: Bao Shichen and Reform in Nineteenth-Century China (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Asia Center, 2018).Google Scholar
Tomi, Saeki 佐佰富, 代鹽政の研究 (A Study of the Qing Salt Administration) (Kyoto, Tōyōshi kenkyūkai, 1956).Google Scholar
Chusei, Suzuki, 鈴木中正, 清朝中時研究 (A Study of the Mid-Qing Period) (Toyohashi, Aichi University Research Institute on International Problems, 1952).Google Scholar
Von Glahn, R., The Economic History of China: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016).Google Scholar
Chengming, Wu 吳承明, “論清代前期我國國內市場” (The Domestic Market in the Early Qing), 歷史研究 (Historical Studies) 1983.1, 96–106.Google Scholar

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