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Recent Studies of Modern Chinese History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Hans van de Ven
Hans van de Ven
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Extract

Some time ago the Commonwealth and Overseas History Society of Cambridge University asked me to provide an overview of recent scholarship on modern Chinese history. What follows is a written version of this ‘public service’ lecture aimed at non-specialist historians. It discusses Western scholarship on China from the eighteenth until the twentieth century.

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Articles
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , May 1996 , pp. 225 - 269
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 The reasons for the rejection will be familiar to area studies specialists and are explained with great clarity in Cohen's, PaulDiscovering History in China (New York, Columbia University Press, 1984).Google Scholar The ‘impact-response’ approach is exemplified by Fairbank, John, Reischauer, Edwin, and Craig, Albert, East Asia: Tradition and Transformation (London: Houghton Mifflin, 1973).Google Scholar See also Ssu-yü, Teng and Fairbank, John (eds), China's Response to the West: A Documentary Survey (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954).Google Scholar For a discussion of these works, see Cohen, Discovering History, pp. 1–40 and p. 200 n.4–6Google Scholar An example of the ‘tradition-modernity’ approach is Levenson, Joseph, Confucian China and its Modern Fate (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1968).Google Scholar Levenson's work is also discussed with insight in Cohen, Discovering History, pp. 61–79.Google Scholar

2 It should be noted that even if the China-centered approach is depicted as a reaction against Fairbank's work, that work contained the sprouts of the China-centered approach in the sense that he insisted that scholarship be based on Chinese archives and that Western historians of China discover how Chinese themselves perceived the West. This is best illustrated in his Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1953).Google Scholar

3 Yoshinobu, Shiba, ‘Jiangnan from the fourteenth century until 1780,’ unpublished paper delivered at the conference ‘International history of early modern East Asia,’ Kauai, January 1987, I thank Jospeh McDermott for pointing out this article and making it available.Google Scholar

4 Huang, Ray, Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-century Ming China (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 118–33.Google Scholar

5 Shiba, pp. 5–18.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., pp. 18–19. Sadao, Nishijima, ‘The formation of the early Chinese cotton industry,’ in Linda Grove and Christian Daniels, State and Society in China: Japanese Perspectives on Ming-Qing Social History (Tokyo, University of Tokyo Press, 1984), 17–77.Google ScholarHuang, Philip, The Peasant Family and Rural Development in the Yangtze Delta, 1350–1988 (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1990), pp. 44–52.Google Scholar

7 Shiba, pp. 33–4.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p. 36.

9 Ibid., pp. 25–6.

10 Ibid., pp. 24–8, 31–2.

11 Ibid., p. 32.

12 Kuhn, Philip, Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 32.Google Scholar

13 Naquin, Susan and Rawski, Evelyn, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1987), p. 23.Google Scholar This book provides an outstanding overview of the eighteenth century.

14 For a regional analysis, see Skinner, G. William, ‘Marketing and social structure (part I)’, Journal of Asian Studies vol. 24:1 (1964), pp. 3–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘Cities and the hierarchy of local systems,’ in Skinner, G. William and Elvin, Mark (eds), The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1977), pp. 275–352.Google Scholar

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16 Kuhn, Soulstealers, p. 37.Google Scholar

17 Naquin, and Rawski, , Chinese Society, p. 103.Google Scholar

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19 Naquin, and Rawsky, , Chinese Society, p. 102.Google Scholar Based on Dermigny, Louis, La Chineet l'occident, le commerce à Canton au XVIIIe siècle, 1719–1833 (Paris, S.E.V.P.E.N., 1964, 4 vols).Google Scholar On the international tea trade, see also Robert Gardella, ‘Qing administration of the tea trade: four facets over three centuries,’ in Leonard, Jane Kate and Watt, John (eds), To Achieve Security and Wealth: The Qing Imperial State and the Economy, 1644–1911 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 97–118.Google Scholar

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21 Rawski, Evelyn, ‘Research themes in Ming-Qing history’ in Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 50:1 (02 1991), pp. 86–7;CrossRefGoogle ScholarNaquin, and Rawski, , Chinese Society, pp. 100–1.Google Scholar

22 Naquin, and Rawski, , Chinese Society, pp. 48–9;Google ScholarGolas, Peter, ‘Early Ch'ing guilds,’ in Skinner and Elvin, The City in Late Imperial China, pp. 555–80.Google Scholar

23 Naquin, and Rawski, , Chinese Society, p. 101. They suggest that one-third of the money supply was in paper form.Google Scholar

24 Perdue, Peter, ‘The Qing state and the Gansu grain market,’ in Rawski and Li, Chinese History in Economic Perspective, pp. 100–25Google Scholar and Wong, R. Bin and Perdue, Peter, ‘Grain markets and food supplies in eighteenth century Hunan,’Google Scholar in ibid., pp. 126–44.

25 Naquin, and Rawski, , Chinese Society, p. 164.Google Scholar

26 Rawski, , ‘Research themes,’ p. 87.Google Scholar

27 Gardella, Robert, ‘Squaring accounts, commercial bookkeeping methods and capitalist rationalism in late Qing and Republican China,’ in Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 51:2 (1992), pp. 321–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Will, Pierre-Etienne, Bureaucracy and Famine in the Eighteenth Century (Stanford, stanford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

29 See also Will, Pierre-Etienne and Wong, R. Bin, Nourish the people: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650–1850 (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press), 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Naquin, and Rawski, , Chinese Society, pp. 22–3.Google Scholar

31 Zelin, Madeleine, The Magistrate's Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984), ch. 1.Google Scholar

32 Ibid.

33 Bastid, Marianne, ‘The structure of the financial institutions of the state in the late Qing,’ in Schram, Stuart, The Scope of State in China (Hong Kong, The Chinese University Press, 1985), pp. 51–79.Google Scholar

34 Feuerwerker, Albert, ‘Economic trends in the late Ch'ing empire, 1870–1911,’ in Fairbank, John K. and Liu, Kwang-Ching (eds), The Cambridge History of China, vol. 11, Late Ch'ing 1800–1911, pt II (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980) pp. 61–5.Google Scholar

35 Bartlett, Beatrice, Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ch'ing China, 1723–1820 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991).Google Scholar

36 See Naquin, and Rawski, , Chinese Society, pp. 138–216.Google Scholar See also the essays in Ebrey, Patricia and Watson, James (eds), Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China 1900–1940 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986)Google Scholar, and Esherick, Joseph and Rankin, Marry (eds), Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990).Google Scholar

37 Naquin, and Rawski, , Chinese Society, pp. 36–9. Articles bringing out the great diversity of styles of lineage organization and regional differences are collected in Ebrey and Watson (eds), Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China.Google Scholar

38 Naquin, and Rawski, , Chinese Society, p. 179–80.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., p. 151.

40 Both high and low culture of the eighteenth century remain understudied. For a general discussion, see ibid., pp. 55–94. Further reading is suggested in the relevant section of the bibliography (pp. 248–50). On popular culture, see also Johnson, David, Nathan, Andrew, and Rawski, Evelyn (eds), Popular Culture in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1985).Google Scholar Current research focuses on how symbols were shared throught chinese culture but meant different things to different people. See for example James Watson, ‘Standardizing the gods,’ in ibid., pp. 292–324.

41 Elman, Benjamin, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Asepts of Change in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Classicism, Politics, and Kinship: The Ch'ang-chou School of New Text Confucianism (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990).Google Scholar

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43 For an intriduction, see Johnson, David, ‘Communication, class, and consciousnessin late Imperial China,’ in Johnson, et al. (eds), Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, pp. 34–72.Google Scholar

44 Kuhn, , Soulstealers.Google Scholar

45 See Will, Bureaucracy and Famine, pp. 289–301;Google ScholarZelin, , The Magistrate's Tael, pp. 264–302.Google Scholar The decline in the granary may in part have been the result of greater reliance on financial relief, but declining efficiency and growing corruption of local adminstration also played a role.

46 Perdue, Peter, Exhausting the Earth (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1987);CrossRefGoogle ScholarSchoppa, Keith, Xiang Lake: Nine Centuries of Chinese Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).Google Scholar The work of these scholars and that of Pierre-Etienne Will explain the fading fortunes of the Qing dynasty by studying the ecological effects of population pressure and migration.

47 On late eighteenth-century rebellions see Naquin, and Rawski, , Chinese Society, 226–8;Google ScholarNaquin, Susan, The Shantung Rebellion: The Wang Lun Uprising of 1774 (New Haven, Yale University press, 1981);Google ScholarNaquin, , ‘The transmission of White Lotus sectarianism,’ in Jonhson, , et al. , (eds), Popular Culture in Late Imperial ChinaGoogle Scholar; Kelly, David, ‘Templates and tribute fleets; the Luo sect and boatmen's associations in the eighteenth century,’ in Modern China, vol. 8:3 (1982), pp. 361–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For ethnic feuding in Taiwan, see Ownby, David, ‘The ethnic feud in Qing Taiwan: what is this violent business, anyway? An interpretation of the 1782 Zhang-Quan Xiedou,’ Late Imperial China, vol. 11:1 (1990), pp. 75–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Bayly, C. E., Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World (London, Longman, 1989), p. 184.Google Scholar

49 William Atwell has analyzed the effects of the world crisis of the mid-seventeenth century on China. It featured abnormal climatological conditions and disruption of international bullion flows. Atwell suggests that the crisis may well have precipitated the fall of the Ming Dynasty. See Atwell, William, ‘Some observation on the “Seventeenth-century crisis” in China and Japan,’ Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 45:2 (1986), pp. 223–44;CrossRefGoogle Scholar modified in ‘A seventeenth century “general crisis” in East Asia,’ in Modern Asian Studies, vol. 24:4 (1990), pp. 661–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Wakeman, Frederic, ‘China and the seventeenth century crisis,’ Late Imperial China, vol. 7:1 (1986), pp. 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 Ye-Chien, Wang, ‘Secular trends of rice price in the Yangzi delta,’ in Rawski and Li, Chinese History in Economic Perspective, p. 63.Google Scholar On rice prices, see p. 48–9. Wang depicts a cucle of long-term price inflation from 1680 until about 1800, with decline setting in it 1820. The peaks reached between 1780 and 1800 were not matched again until the 1860s, when prices were driven up by the taiping Rebellion. Wang sought to establish long-term averages. What matters for social disorders is not only that but also year-to-year fluctuations. Two years of high prices will cause panic in an agricultural society.

51 For long term Chinese price rises and silver holdings, see ibid., pp. 55–62; See also Kuhn, , Soulstealers, pp. 37–9, and p. 238, n. 4.Google Scholar In 1987 a conference was held in Hawaü to discuss China's international trade during the Ming and Qing. The papers have not yet been published.

52 So far, only two articles have appeared on the history of diseases in China: Benedict, Carol, ‘Bubonic plague in neneteenth century China,’ Modern China, vol. 14:2 (1988), pp. 107–55CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed and Dunston, Helen, ‘The late Ming epidemics: a preliminary survey,’ in Ch'ing-shih Wen-l'i, vol 3:3 (1975), pp. 1–59.Google Scholar

53 Waley-Cohen, Joanna, ‘China and Western technology in the late eighteenth century,’ American Historical Review, vol. 98:5 (1993), pp. 525–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 Hevia, James, ‘The Macartney embassy in the history of Sino-Western relations,’ in Bickers, Robert (ed.), Ritual and Diplomacy (The British Association for Chinise studies, London, wellsweep Press, 1993), pp. 70–2.Google Scholar The article seeks to understand the calsh between Macartney and the Chinese court as resulting from practical issues rather than Chinese culturalism. On the court's willingness to change ritual, an indication of cultural flexibility, see Hevia, , ‘A multitude of lords: Qing court ritual and the Macartney embassy of 1793,’ in Late Imperial China, vol, 10:2 (1989), pp. 72–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 Fletcher, Joseph, ‘Ch'ing Inner Asia,’ in Fairbank, John K. (ed.), Cambridge History of China, vol. 10Google Scholar, Late Ch'ing 1800–1911, pt I (Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 103.Google Scholar

56 Reported by Hodgson, B. H., the British Resident in Kathmandu and an Orientalist in the early 1830s, in The Friend of India, 16 March 1848. British Library, Oriental and India Office Collections, F/ 4 /1384, no. 55154. I thank Professor C. E. Bayly for pointing this out.Google Scholar

57 Colley, Linda, Britons, Forging the Nation, 1707–1847 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

58 Kuhn, Philip and Mann-Jones, Susan, ‘Dynastic decline and the roots of rebellion,’ in Fairbank, (ed.), Cambridge History of China, vol. 10, pp. 107–62.Google Scholar

59 On factionalism, see Polachek, James, The Inner Opium War (Cambridge, Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

60 Kuhn, Philip, ‘Origins of the taiping vision: cross-cultural dimensions of a Chinese rebellion,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol, 19:3 (1977), pp. 350–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also, ‘The Taiping Rebellion,’ in Fairbank, , (ed.), Cambridge Historyof China, vol. 10, pp. 264–317.Google Scholar On the relidious aspects of the Taiping as a whole, see Wagner, Rudolf, Reenacting the Heavenly Vision: The Tole of Religion in the Taiping Rebellion (Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies, University if California Press, 1982.)Google Scholar For a description of the processes that led up to the Taiping Rebellion, see also Kuhn, and Jones, Mann, ‘Dynastic decline and the roots of rebellion,’ pp. 107–62.Google Scholar The story of the Taiping Rebellion is well told in Michael, Franz and Chung-li, Chang, The Taiping Rebellion: History and documents (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1966–1971, 3 vols).Google Scholar

61 Kuhn, Philip, Rebellion and its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796–1864 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

62 Naquin, Susan, Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813 (New Haven, Yale University Press).Google Scholar See also Overmeyer, Daniel, Folk Buddhist Religion. Dissenting sects in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63 Perry, Elizabeth, Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845–1945 (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1980).Google Scholar

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65 Gasster, Michael, ‘The republican revolutionary movement,’ in Fairbank, and Liu, , (eds), Cambridge History of China, vol. II, pp. 465–506.Google Scholar

66 Ibid., pp. 484–507. See also Rankin, Mary, Early Chinese Revolutionaries: Radical Intellectuals in Shanghi and Chekiang 1902–1911, (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

67 Hsieh, Winston, Chinese Historiography on the Revolution of 1911 (Stanford, Hoover Institution Press, 1975).Google Scholar

68 Research on the role of elites in the 1911 Revolution and its conservative outcome is summarized in Chohen, Discovering History, pp. 158–161, 167.Google Scholar

69 Schwartz, Benjamin, ‘Themes in intellectual history: May Fourthe and after,’ in Fairbank, John K. (ed.), The Cambridge History of China, vol. 12, Republican China 1912–1949 pt 1 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 419.Google Scholar

70 There is a vast literature on the subject of the first United Front. For the nationalist side, see Wilbur, C. Martin, ‘The nationalist revolution: from Canton to Nanking’, in Fairbank, (ed.), Cambridge History of China, vol. 12, pp. 528–39.Google Scholar The evolution of Russian policy is discussed in Whiting, Alan, Soviet Policies in China (New York, Columbia University Press, 1954).Google Scholar Documents revealing the great difficulty communist International agents had in China in convincing them to accept the United Front are collected and translated in Saich, Tony (ed.), The Origins of the First united Front: The Role of Sneevliet (Leiden, Brill, 1991).Google Scholar See also van de Ven, Hans, From Friend to Comrade: The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1920–1927 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991), pp. 105–8.Google Scholar

71 Dirlik's, ArifThe Origins of Chinese Communism (Oxford University Press, 1989) shows that anarchism was far more influential than Leninism in the late 1910s.Google ScholarVan de Ven, From Friend to ComradeGoogle Scholar, For a detailed discussion of ideological development, see Luk, Michael, The Origins of Chinese Bolshevism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

72 Ven, Van de, From Friend to Comrade, pp. 99–146.Google Scholar

73 Ibid., pp. 147–98. Earlier studies argued that the debacle for the Chinese Communists was caused by Stalin's insistence that the communists continue the united front and not organize their own army. See Brandt, Conrad, Stalin's Failure in China, 1924–1927 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1958);Google ScholarIsaacs, Hafrold, The Tragedy of he Chinese Revolution (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1961).Google Scholar

74 Averill, Stephen, ‘The origins of the Futian incident,’ in Saich, Tony and van de Ven, Hans (eds), New Perspections on the Chinese Revolution (Armonk, M. E. Sharpe, 1994).Google Scholar

75 This period still lacks adequate coverage. But see Averill, Stephen, ‘Party, society, and local elite in the Jiangxi communist movement’, in Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 46:2 (1987) pp. 279–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Averill, , ‘Origins of the Futian incident’ Hsiao Tso-liang, Power Relations within the Chinese Communist Moverment: A Study of documents (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1961);Google Scholar and Yang, Benjamin, From Revolution to Politics (Boulder, Westview Press, 1990).Google Scholar

76 van Slyke, Lyman, ‘The communist movement, 1937–1945,’ in Fairbank, John K. and Feuerwerker, Albert (eds), The Cambridge History, vol. 13, Republican China 1912–1949, pt II (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986) pp. 609–722.Google Scholar

77 Yung-fa, Ch'en, ‘The Blooming poppy under the red sun,’ in Saich, and van de Ven, (eds), New Perspectives.Google Scholar

78 Levine, Stephen, Anvil of Victory (New York, Columbia University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

79 Pepper, Suzanne, Civil War in China; The Political Struggle, 1945–1949 (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press, 1978).Google Scholar

80 Dunn, John, ‘Conclusion,’ in Saich and van de Ven, New Perspectives.Google Scholar

81 Schwartz, , ‘Themes in intellectual history,’ pp. 409–19.Google Scholar

82 Ibid., pp. 413–14.

83 Hunt, Lynn, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986), pp. 39–48.Google Scholar

84 Apter, David, ‘Discourse as power: Yan'an and the Chinese revolution,’ in Saich and van de Ven, New Perspectives.Google Scholar

85 Schwarcz, Vera, Chinese Enlightenment. Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986);Google ScholarLeung, John, ‘The Chinese Work-study Movement: The Social and Political Experience of Chinese Students and Student-workers in France, 1913–1925,’ unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 1982.Google Scholar

86 Averill, , ‘The Origins of the Futian incident.’Google Scholar

87 Kuhn, , Rebellion and its Enemies, pp. 211–25.Google Scholar

88 Rowe, William, Hankou: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889 (Stanford, Stanford Universtiy Press, 1984)Google Scholar and Hankou: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City, 1796–1895 (Stanford, Stanford Universtiy Press, 1989).Google Scholar In ‘The public sphere in modern China' Rowe slightly modifies his position by arguing that the publi sphere did grow in the late Qing Dynasty, but tht the state simultaneously experienced ‘rapid modern growth.’ Referring to Philippe Aries, he believes that as in Europe earlier, the public sphere grew at a time when the state's jurisdictional claims expanded faster than its institutional capabilities (Modern China, vol. 16:3, pp. 323–4).Google Scholar

89 Rankin, Mary, Elite Activism and Political Transformation in China: Zhejiang province, 1865–1911 (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

90 On changing conceptions of ‘public’ see also Ch'eng I-fan, ‘Kong as ethos in late nineteenth century China: the case of Wang Hsien-ch'ien,’ In Paul Cohen and Schrecker, John, Reform in Nineteenth Centu'y China (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 170–80.Google Scholar

91 Strand, David, Rickshaw Beijing: City People and Politics in the 1920s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).Google Scholar

92 Bergére, Marie-Claire, The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie, 1911–1937, tr. Lloyd, Janet (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986);Google ScholarCoble, Parks, The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government, 1927–1937 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1980);CrossRefGoogle ScholarEastman, Lloyd, The Abortive Revolution: China under Nationalist Rule, 1927–1937 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

93 Wakeman, Frederic, ‘The civil society and public sphere debate,’ in Modern China, Vol. 19:2 pp. 108–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

94 Kuhn, Philip, ‘Local self-government under the Republic,’ in Frederic Wakeman and Carolyn Grant, Conflict and Control in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1975) pp. 257–98;Google ScholarSchoppa, Keith, Chinese Elites and Political Change: Zhejiang Province in the Early Twentieth Century (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1981).Google Scholar

95 Mann, Susan, Local Merchants and the Chinese Bureaucracy, 1753–1908 (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1987), pp. 94–120. Local merchants in fact hated the new taxes.Google Scholar

96 Duara, Prasenjit, Culture, Power, and the State (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

97 Summarized in Faure, David, The Rural Economy of Pre-liberation China (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 2–7.Google Scholar For other review articles, see Feuerwerker, Albert, ‘Questions about China's economy,’ in Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 51:4 (1992, pp. 757–69;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMyers, Ramon, ‘How did the modern Chinese economy develop?—a review article,’ in Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 50:3 (1991), pp. 604–28;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWong, R. Bin, ‘The development of China's peasant economy: a new formulation of old problems,’ Peasant Studies, vol. 18:1 (1990), pp. 5–26.Google Scholar

98 Rawskia, Thomas, Economic Growth in Pre-war China (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989).Google Scholar

99 Faure, , The Rural Economy of Pre-liberation China.Google Scholar

100 Brandt, Loren, Commercialization and Agricultural Development in East-Central China, 1870–1937 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989).Google Scholar For the criticism, see Wong, R. Bin, ‘Chinese economic history and development: a note on the Myers-Huang exchange,’ in Journal of Asian History, vol. 51:3 (1992), pp. 602–3;Google ScholarEsherick, Joseph, review of Brandt, Loren, Journal of Economic History vol. 51:2 (1991), pp. 501–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

101 Huang, Philip, The Peasant Economy and Change in North China (Stanford University Press, 1985);Google ScholarHuang, The Peasant Family and Rural Development (see fn 6).Google Scholar

102 For the criticism see Wong, Bin, ‘Chinese economic history and development.’Google Scholar It has also been remarked that Huang's views are close to those of Chao, Kang, Man and Land in Chinese History (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar He also ignores Japanese scholarship on the history of commercialization of the lower Yangtze region.

103 Wong, Bin, ‘Chinese economic history and development.’Google Scholar

104 Skinner, G. William, ‘Sichuan's population in the nineteenth century: lessons from disaggregated data,’ in Lale Imperial China, vol. 8:1 (1987), pp. 1–79;CrossRefGoogle Scholar For an article integrating demography and economic history, see Feuerwerker, Albert, ‘Chinese economic history in comparative perspective,’ in Ropp, Paul (ed.), Heritage of China (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990), pp. 224–41.Google Scholar

105 Stephen MacKinnon of Arizona State University at Tempe has brought a group of some ten historians of Chinese warfare together and is planning a series of annual conferences. McCord, Edward has recently published The Power of the Gun: The Emergence of Chinese Warlordism (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993)Google Scholar and Chang-tai, Hung, War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937–1945 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1994).Google ScholarModern Asian Studies has scheduled a special issue on Chinese military history from the eighteenth to the twentieth century for 1996.

106 Braudel, Ferdinand, The Identity of France, tr. Reynolds, Sian (New York, Harper Perennial, 1992), vol. 2, p. 168.Google Scholar

107 Perdue, Peter, ‘China's conquest of Xinjiang,’ a paper presented at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Cambridge University, 11 1993.Google Scholar

108 Waley-Cohen, , ‘China and Western technology.’Google Scholar

109 Headrick, Daniel, Tools of Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 43–54, 87.Google Scholar

110 Fung, Allen, ‘China's failure reconsidered: an analysis of the defeat of the Chinese army during the Sino-Japanese war (1894–95),’ paper presented at the annual meeting of the Sino-Japanese studies group of the Association of Asian Studies, March 1993.Google Scholar

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112 Fung, Edmund, The Militay Dimension of the Chinese Revolution: The New Army and its Role in the Revolution of 1911 (Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 1980), pp. 114–94.Google Scholar See also O'Brien, Anita, ‘Military academies in China: 1885–1915,’ in Fogel, J. and Rowe, W., Perspectives on a Changing China (Westview, 1979), pp. 157–82.Google Scholar

113 See for instance Kuhn, Philip, ‘The development of local government,’ in Fairbank and Fewerwerker, Cambridge History of China, vol. 13, pp. 340–44.Google Scholar

114 Duara, Prasenjit, ‘Nationalism and the politics of culture,’ Woodrow Wilson Center Occasional Paper, Washington, 1990.Google Scholar

115 Chen-ya, Tien, Chinese Military Theory, pp. 125–33.Google Scholar

116 Ibid., pp. 130–4.

117 Ibid., pp. 127–30.

118 Lewis, Mark, ‘The warring state in China as institution and idea,’ paper presented at the conference ‘Why is violence acceptable-War as an institution,’ St John's College, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 12–17.Google Scholar

119 Duara, Prasenjit, ‘Superscribing symbols: the myth of Guandi, China's god of war,’ in The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 47:4 (1988), p. 779.CrossRefGoogle Scholar