A Guide to the “New” Chinese History: Recent Publications Concerning Chinese Social and Economic Development before 1800

Abstract

SUMMARY: During the last 15 years or so, the study of Chinese history in the United States and Europe has been transformed through new foci of interest as well as the employment of social science methodologies. This article surveys a selected number of recent publications and categorizes them according to five themes: "commoners, women, and outsiders", "the structural approach", "state and society", "China and I'histoireglobale", and "China and the West". It is demonstrated that the continui ties within Chinese development, including the progressive demographic expansion of the Chinese population, the formulation and exercise of gentry rulership, the general vigour of the economy, and increased regional and subregional agricultural/ industrial production and distribution are not confined to specific dynastic periods and should be viewed in a long-term context.

Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571-1644

“…76 73 Cohen (1984), Discovering History, pp. 1-56; 149-198; For twentieth-century scholarship on pre-modern China, see Zurndorfer (1988), 'Guide', pp. 148-201; A recent Cambridge University Press manual synthesises works on hydraulic despotism, feudalism, anti-imperialism, Chinese nationalist, and traditionalist narratives, as well as recent Western scholarship influenced by postmodernism: Wilkinson (2012), Chinese History.…”