Among the most striking features of late imperial China (ca. 1400-1912) was the fact that, though it had a highly commercialized society, most peasants continued to have very strong claims to their land, and only a very small share of the population became dependent on earning wages. In this talk, Professor Pomeranz will analyze several reasons for this pattern of development and trace the long-term consequences of the system that resulted from it, showing that it created a distinct political economy that produced considerable agricultural and commercial dynamism--but not industrialization. Pomeranz will further argue that the impact of these economic patterns continues even in today's era of post-Mao reform.
Kenneth Pomeranz is University Professor in the Department of History and the College at the University of Chicago and the current president of the American Historical Association. His publications include The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, and The Making of a Hinterland: State, Society and Economy in Inland North China, 1853-1937, as well as several coauthored, edited, and coedited volumes. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Institute for Advanced Studies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others.
17 дек 2013
