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Harvesting mountains : Fujian and the China tea trade, 1757-1937 / Robert Gardella.

By: Publication details: Berkeley : University of California Press, c1994.Description: xiv, 259 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cmISBN:
  • 0520084144 (alk. paper)
  • 9780520084148 (alk. paper)
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 382/.41372/0951245 20
LOC classification:
  • HD9198.C52 F854 1994
Contents:
Introduction: Southeast China's Tea Trade and the Capitalist World Economy -- 1. Tea Production and Export in Mid-Qing Fujian: Commercial Capitalism and the Exploitation of the Minbei Uplands -- 2. Extensive Growth without Structural Change: The Tea Boom of 1842-1888 in Fujian and Taiwan -- 3. Ramifications of the Tea Boom -- 4. The Challenge of Colonial Capitalism: The Organizational and Technological Transformation of the Late-Nineteenth-Century World Tea Trade -- 5. Reviving China's Tea Trade as a National Issue, 1890-1937 -- 6. Recollections and Realities: Tea and Fujian's Economy, 1912-1937 -- Conclusion: A Provincial Trade in a Global Market, 1757-1937 -- Appendix: Variant Forms of Fujian, Taiwan, and Jiangxi Place Names
Summary: Few commodities have been as synonymous with any civilization as tea with China. Robert Gardella's book describes and analyzes the multi-faceted influence of tea production and the tea trade on Fujian, one of China's premier tea-growing regions, over the past two centuries. Based on extensive archival research, this study illuminates the economic, social, fiscal, and environmental ramifications of China's involvement with a dynamic world economy. As contemporary China increasingly opens up to foreign trade and investment, the long-term historical experience documented here takes on a renewed importance. China's tea trade showed moderate growth before the Opium War, rapid expansion in the mid to late nineteenth century; and volatile market dislocations and decline thereafter as competition from colonial plantations in India and Ceylon coincided with the effects of structural flaws in China's political economy. This case study of Fujian addresses central themes in modern Chinese economic history - foreign trade as an engine of growth or a tool of imperialist oppression; the role of foreign trade beyond China's urban coastal enclaves; and the relationship of China's premodern economy with the global market.
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Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Books Books The Anton Library of Chinese Studies General Stacks HD9198.C52 F854 1994 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) c.1 Available TBC00004070
Books Books The Anton Library of Chinese Studies General Stacks HD9198.C52 F854 1994 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) c.2 Available TBC00009249

Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-250) and index.

Few commodities have been as synonymous with any civilization as tea with China. Robert Gardella's book describes and analyzes the multi-faceted influence of tea production and the tea trade on Fujian, one of China's premier tea-growing regions, over the past two centuries. Based on extensive archival research, this study illuminates the economic, social, fiscal, and environmental ramifications of China's involvement with a dynamic world economy. As contemporary China increasingly opens up to foreign trade and investment, the long-term historical experience documented here takes on a renewed importance. China's tea trade showed moderate growth before the Opium War, rapid expansion in the mid to late nineteenth century; and volatile market dislocations and decline thereafter as competition from colonial plantations in India and Ceylon coincided with the effects of structural flaws in China's political economy. This case study of Fujian addresses central themes in modern Chinese economic history - foreign trade as an engine of growth or a tool of imperialist oppression; the role of foreign trade beyond China's urban coastal enclaves; and the relationship of China's premodern economy with the global market.

Introduction: Southeast China's Tea Trade and the Capitalist World Economy -- 1. Tea Production and Export in Mid-Qing Fujian: Commercial Capitalism and the Exploitation of the Minbei Uplands -- 2. Extensive Growth without Structural Change: The Tea Boom of 1842-1888 in Fujian and Taiwan -- 3. Ramifications of the Tea Boom -- 4. The Challenge of Colonial Capitalism: The Organizational and Technological Transformation of the Late-Nineteenth-Century World Tea Trade -- 5. Reviving China's Tea Trade as a National Issue, 1890-1937 -- 6. Recollections and Realities: Tea and Fujian's Economy, 1912-1937 -- Conclusion: A Provincial Trade in a Global Market, 1757-1937 -- Appendix: Variant Forms of Fujian, Taiwan, and Jiangxi Place Names

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