The Political Economy of the Han Dynasty and Its Legacy

Cheng Lin is Professor and Dean of the Department of Economic History at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Vice-President of the Society of the History of Chinese Economic Thought. His main research area is the history of Chinese economic thought with a particular focus on nineteenth and early twentieth century thought. Terry Peach is Professor of Economics at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and has previously taught at the Universities of Manchester and Oxford. His research and publications fall within the area of history of economic thought, recently extended to include ancient Chinese and Greek thought. Wang Fang is Professor of Economics at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Her main research field is the history of Chinese economic thought from ancient times to the present, with particular attention to ideas concerning land issues.

List of contributors; Acknowledgements; Chapter 1: The Political Economy of the Han: Introduction, Terry Peach; Chapter 2: From Contention to Unification: Transformation of Economic Thought in the Han Dynasty and its Heritage, Cheng Lin and Zhang Shen; Chapter 3: Dong Zhongshu and Confucian Economic Thought as State Ideology in the Western Han Dynasty, Zhong Xiangcai; Chapter 4: The Monetary and Fiscal System of the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties, Ma Tao and Li Wei; Chapter 5: Monetary Thought in the Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms Period (220 BCE-280 CE), Gavin S.H. Chiu and S.C. Kwan; Chapter 6: The System of Tribute Equalisation in the Han, Li Chaomin; Chapter 7: War Economy in the Western Han Dynasty, Elisa Levi Sabattini; Chapter 8: The ‘Land Quota’ System in the Han Dynasty and its Historical Influence, Wang Fang; Chapter 9: A Western Perspective on the Yantie lun, Bertram Schefold; Chapter 10: Sima Qian and Laissez Faire: Satire on a ‘Discordant and Degenerate Age’, Terry Peach; Index