The Cambridge Economic History of China: Volume II By Richard vonGlahn and DebinMa (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. pp. 864. 29 figs. ISBN 9781108348485. Hbk £120
本书由21位顶尖学者撰写，聚焦1800年后中国经济衰退的原因，通过比较视角分析清朝政治体制、企业制度、对外贸易及西方影响，适合经济史和比较发展研究者参考。
Volume II of the Cambridge Economic History of China consists of 21 chapters by leading scholars of Chinese economic history.By all expectations, it will find a prominent place on the bookshelf of economic historians.In the interest of brevity, this review focuses on selected chapters certain to be of interest to economic historians and scholars of comparative economic development.Chapter 1 by Debin Ma opens by considering intellectual factors in China's economic decline after 1800.The chapter assesses China's comparative economic development following the First Opium War, noting the rapid pace of economic transformation within modernizing sectors contrasted with aggregate stagnation.A valuable feature of this volume is the comparative approach within many chapters.Ma notes that while Japan's political transition facilitated its rapid adoption of new Western ideas, the Qing dynasty lacked indigenous legitimacy and sat atop a highly centralized but weak state apparatus.It did not have the capacity for a 'paradigmatic change' of the sort required for China to have experienced modern economic growth in the nineteenth century.In chapter 10, Madeleine Zelin examines the 'four pillars' essential to Chinese enterprise of the time: family, partnerships, native place, and the guild.Her well-documented examples from the Qing period provide a rich institutional context for local economic activity.Chapter 13 by Wolfgang Keller and Carol Shiue narrates Qing China's increasing involvement in overseas trade prior to the First Opium War.Increased opium imports disrupted the Canton system and brought about conflict with the Western powers, leading to the Treaty Port Era.Keller and Shiue use data from the China Maritime Customs, suggesting trade in this period broadly confirms the predictions of a gravity model, and that trade had a major impact on the spatial distribution of economic activity within China.Chapter 11 by James Kung expands on the West's impact through the treaty ports, paying particular attention to the 'self-initiated ports' (SIPs).He suggests that the impact of the West (here including Japan) was transformative, with treaty ports channelling large amounts of foreign direct investment (FDI) and commercial development.Western firms had a positive 'demonstration effect' on domestic firms and banks, and the impact on economic output was persistent.