Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
In China historical data are in short supply and, even when they are not, their quality is low. In this book, the authors deal with these issues in ca. 1933, which is the first year in which historical data, and information on data quality, at a more extensive scale became available.
Besides data construction and collection, the authors extend their analysis by comparing industrialization in small regions across China. Furthermore, they look at the different spread of modern and handicraft factories from large port cities inwards towards less industrialized regions.
Besides data construction and collection, the authors extend their analysis by comparing industrialization in small regions across China. Furthermore, they look at the different spread of modern and handicraft factories from large port cities inwards towards less industrialized regions.
Price: $151.00
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Publication Date:
07 January 2027
ISBN: 9789004760127
Format: Hardcover
"Yi Xu and Bas van Leeuwen provide the definitive quantitative overview of Chinese industry in the early 1930s. It is centred on the year 1933, which corresponds to the first national industrial survey in modern China, capturing the mature prewar configuration of both factories and handicrafts several decades after the opening of the treaty-ports and before the wartime disruption of the later 1930s. The approach goes beyond national aggregates with a focus on regional differences, allowing for the spatial co-existence of modern and traditional production forms. The authors establish that China’s industrialization was characterized by pronounced and persistent spatial inequality, with modern factory industry concentrated in a small number of coastal and treaty-port regions. They also find that regional industrialization unfolded through a differentiated sequence of stages passing through incubation, initial development, expansion, and high development rather than along a uniform national path, and that these differences can be explained by the interaction between long-term structural conditions and short-term driving forces. This book will be an essential resource for anyone interested in China’s economic development in the 20th century." – Prof. Stephen Broadberry, University of Oxford
"As China's emergence as the world's manufacturing powerhouse during the past two decades sends shockwaves around the world, this book provides the best statistical and historical account on her modest origin more than two centuries ago. This book is true scholarship based on meticulous research utilizing the best statistics available. For the first time, we see a comprehensive account of the scale, the geography, the magnitude and depth of modernization in early twenty century China. It is both a must read and an authoritative handbook of scholars and readers of general interest." – Debin Ma, Distinguished Professor of Economics, Fudan University (Shanghai, China)
"As China's emergence as the world's manufacturing powerhouse during the past two decades sends shockwaves around the world, this book provides the best statistical and historical account on her modest origin more than two centuries ago. This book is true scholarship based on meticulous research utilizing the best statistics available. For the first time, we see a comprehensive account of the scale, the geography, the magnitude and depth of modernization in early twenty century China. It is both a must read and an authoritative handbook of scholars and readers of general interest." – Debin Ma, Distinguished Professor of Economics, Fudan University (Shanghai, China)
Xu Yi, Ph.D. (2007), is Professor and Dean at the College of History, Culture and Tourism, Guangxi Normal University. His fields of interest include modern and contemporary Chinese history, Qing history, quantitative economic history, and borderland history. He has published extensively on Chinese economic history and regional industrialization, with particular emphasis on the construction and use of quantitative historical databases.
Bas van Leeuwen, Ph.D (2007), is Senior Researcher at the International Institute of Social History. His fields of interest: price volatility, markets, human capital, national accounts, and industrialization. He published on China in various books and articles on Chinese quantitative data.
Bas van Leeuwen, Ph.D (2007), is Senior Researcher at the International Institute of Social History. His fields of interest: price volatility, markets, human capital, national accounts, and industrialization. He published on China in various books and articles on Chinese quantitative data.