Guns and Ledgers

This book seeks to reconcile the dual forces of war and economic globalization in tracing China's early modernity. For late imperial China, there were two forms of encounter with the West; the guns of invading Europeans, and the ledgers by which trade between China and the West was measured and regulated. Even today, China's reactions to the West oscillate between business-driven openness and military paranoia. In this intellectual tour de force, Bozhong Li, one of China's preeminent intellectual and economic historians, traces the unprecedented transition that led China into the modern world; the book will be of value for economists, historians, and sinophiles alike.

Reflects the early Economic Globalization from different perspectives Offers a new paradigm of economic history for China Traces the fascinating history of military-commercial tensions in China

Auteur
Bozhong Li was born in Kunming, Yunnan Province in 1949. He graduated with a Ph.D degree in History from Xiamen University in 1985, becoming one of the first group of Ph.D students after the Chinese mainland resumed the academic degree system. He is a chair professor in humanity studies of Peking University, professor of Department of History of Peking University, consultant of National Center for Economic Research at Tsinghua University, as well as distinguished professor of School of History of Capital Normal University. He has also been the guest professor or visiting scholar to Harvard University, University of Michigan, UCLA, MIT, California Institute of Technology, U.S. Congress Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the US National Humanities Center, Cambridge University, London School of Economics, the University of Tokyo, Keio University and French School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS).

Contenu
Chapter 1 What Kind of Book is This?.- Chapter 2 The World that Trade Created.- Chapter 3 The Military Revolution in the Era of Early Economic Globalization.- Chapter 4 The Big Shuffle: theEast Asian World in the Era of Early Economic Globalization.- Chapter 5 Fighting on Sea and Land: International Conflicts in East Asia in the Era of Early Economic Globalization.- Chapter 6Strategy and Armies: National Security in the Late Ming and the Military Reform Campaign.- Chapter 7 A Time of Great Strife: Four Major Wars in East Asia in the Late Ming.- Chapter 8 Concluding Remarks: The Writing of History is Terrifying.