Not available in 2024/25
EH218 Half Unit
Chinese Economic History since 1800: Economic Growth in a Historical Perspective
This information is for the 2024/25 session.
Teacher responsible
Dr Melanie Meng Xue SAR 6.12
Availability
This course is available as an outside option to students on non-Economic History programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.
Pre-requisites
A background in statistical methods is preferred but not required.
Course content
The course is based on cutting edge research - both articles and book chapters - on a number of topics, including (1) Geography, (2) Institutions, (3) States, (4) Culture, (5) Social Capital, (6) Gender, (7) Human capital, (8) Social Mobility, (9) Trade, (10) Disasters.
Teaching
This course is delivered through a combination of classes and lectures totalling a minimum of 20 hours in Lent Term.
This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Lent Term.
Formative coursework
Students are expected to produce 1 essay during the teaching term.
Indicative reading
- Deng, Kent, Mapping China’s Growth and Development in the Long Run, 221 BC to 2020 (London: World Scientific Press and Imperial College Press);
- Richard von Glahn, The Economic History of China: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century Cambridge University Press, 2016;
- Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence, China, Europe and the making of the modern world economy Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 2000;
- Wong, Roy Bin. China transformed: historical change and the limits of European experience. Cornell University Press, 1997
Additional reading
- Philip A Kuhn (2002). “Origins of the Modern Chinese State”. In: Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002, 80–113
- Roy Bin Wong (1997). China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience. Cornell University Press, 1997, Chapter 4
- Geoffrey Parker (2013). “The ‘Great Enterprise’ in China, 1618–84”. In: Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and C