A Novel History Of China

James Lee together with Byong-Ho Lee create got created a remarkable novel course on Coursera titled "A New History for a New China...

James Lee together with Byong-Ho Lee create got created a remarkable novel course on Coursera titled "A New History for a New China, 1700-2000: New Data together with New Methods, Part 1". This production is a really of import contribution to Chinese history. The course of instruction is non designed as an up-to-date summary of the history of early on modern China, along the lines of Fairbank's China: H5N1 New History, Second Enlarged Edition. It is non a survey of Chinese history as traditionally treated.  Instead, it is a clear together with logical presentation of a real unlike means of thinking nigh China's history: non as a chronology of events, dynasties, revolutions, rebellions, together with notable individuals, but rather as an analytical report of the forces underlying pervasive social realities inwards Communist People's Republic of China over this three-hundred yr period. The fundamental topics are privilege, wealth, power, together with health, together with the methodology is solidly quantitative. The analysis depends on a issue of large information sets of sub-populations that James Lee together with colleagues create got assembled inwards the past times xxx years. And Lee together with Lee run advanced statistical together with quantitative methods to probe the associations that be inside these datasets that would cast low-cal on topics similar political power, social mobility, together with the workings of institutions. Most importantly, Lee together with Lee are determined to probe the large sociological questions on the dry soil of demographic together with social information nigh historical individuals.

The Lee-Campbell inquiry grouping has created viii information sets amongst millions of unique individuals from specific places together with periods inwards Communist People's Republic of China over the past times iii centuries. These sets include population registers for over 500,000 distinct individuals. These datasets constitute the empirical inwardness of the course.

The course of instruction is organized inwards iii large segments:

• Part I. Who Gets What? social structure, mobility, distribution
• Part II. Who Survives? mortality, fertility, marriage
• Part III. Who Cares? religion, gender, ethnicity, nationalism

Part I is underway now, together with after parts volition last produced inwards the nigh future.

Lee's organizing questions are sociological together with demographic. In Part I the fundamental questions are these:

• Why practise to a greater extent than or less people ascent to the overstep spell others practise not?
• Why is wealth to a greater extent than unequally distributed inwards to a greater extent than or less societies than inwards others?

The approach taken here, together with pervasively throughout the inquiry of the Lee-Campbell inquiry group, is quantitative.

We acquaint the results from a novel scholarship of regain based largely on the creation together with analysis of large social scientific discipline information from historical together with contemporary China…. [This allows us] to fix a novel sort of history from below that contributes to a to a greater extent than global agreement of human history together with human behavior.

So what are the statistical foundations of their analysis? Here are the datasets that are used inwards the course:

1. China Multi-Generational Panel Data-Liaoning (1.2M records for 260K individuals)
2. China Multi-Generational Panel Data-Shuangcheng (1.5M records for 125K individuals together with 19K province plots, 1870-1906)
3. China Multi-Generational Panel Data-Imperial Lineage (250K private life histories 1640-1935)
4. dataset of 350K+ individuals amongst academy academic records or civil service exam results
5. dataset of 75K successful Imperial Examination Juren together with Jinshi, 1371-1904
6. dataset of 120K Chinese academy graduates, 1902-1951
7. dataset of 175K Peking together with Suzhou academy students, 1952-2004
8. dataset from Chinese collectivization, 1947-48, Shuangcheng County

It is patently that at that spot are a large issue of individuals included inwards these datasets. These bodies of information permit a real precise together with rigorous flat of analysis past times the researchers inwards probing various kinds of causal associations. But it is too patently that they offering real focused together with specialized points of observation of the social processes taking house across Communist People's Republic of China together with across time. So at that spot is a background premise that seems credible but too seems to remove to a greater extent than explicit discussion:

• there are identifiable together with pervasive social processes at piece of occupation inwards China, together with detailed report of Liaoning or Shuangcheng tin position to a greater extent than or less of these processes. 

The discoveries nigh the causal factors involved inwards Chinese social mobility that tin last drawn from dataset #3, for example, are most interesting if nosotros tin infer that the contours of causation that nosotros detect hither are roughly similar to social mobility processes inwards other parts of Communist People's Republic of China inwards the Qing period. On the other hand, it powerfulness plough out that mobility inwards the Lower Yangzi percentage is based on factors having to practise amongst commerce together with wealth to a greater extent than was truthful inwards North China's Liaoning.

It is too interesting that Lee together with his collaborators create got a somewhat structural approach to social causation:

The driving factors of history are non but the ideas or actions of Great Men (or Women), but too from monastic tell as a whole, together with that socio-economic forces including social stratification together with wealth distribution together amongst politics are of import factors that "push together with pull" on actors together with actions to create historical change.

This description singles out socio-economic forces as objects of study.

Another affair that strikes me is that the piece of occupation presented hither is "comparative historical sociology" rather than traditional historical research. (Lee sometimes refers to his dependent as "historical social science", together with he emphasizes that the course of instruction is "explicitly comparative".) The approach seeks to evaluate hypotheses nigh how these large variables are influenced (wealth, power, longevity, wellness status, education). The opening comments James Lee makes inwards the introductory lecture nigh intuitive together with anecdotal historical interpretation, together with the comments nigh analytical rather than chronological organization, underline the point: this is non traditional history.

Our flat eschews the criterion chronological narrative arc for an analytic approach that focuses on specific discoveries together with on how these novel facts complicate our agreement of comparative societies, human behavior, together with the construction of private together with grouping identities.
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Unlike traditional history which focuses largely on the biographies together with actions of specific historic figures, A New History for a New China seeks to write a history based on the experiences of all people, elites together with non-elites.

This powerfulness imply that Lee together with his colleagues hateful to supersede traditional historiography of Communist People's Republic of China amongst the "big data" approach. But James Lee together with others inwards this inquiry grouping larn far clear (outside this course) that these researchers are inwards fact pluralistic nigh historical research; they don't hateful to tell that historians who are to a greater extent than interested inwards the specific circumstances leading to alter inwards a largely chronological construction are doing shabby history. There is a non bad bargain of real exciting novel historical inquiry on Communist People's Republic of China that has come upwardly forrard inwards the past times xx years, together with much of that inquiry takes the shape of organized narratives. (Peter Perdue's China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia is a real skillful example.) These are skillful pieces of rigorous historical noesis creation as well, though non based on large quantitative information sets. So this sociological, "big data" approach is i of import novel contribution, but non a replacement for all other historiographical approaches.

This course of instruction is good worth following. It does an fantabulous chore of tying together the various together with rigorous piece of occupation that the Lee-Campbell inquiry grouping has been doing for xxx years, together with it provides a coherent framework together with system of presentation for that work. In this feel I intend it illustrates a virtue of the MOOC format that hasn't withal been discussed real much: as a platform for the presentation together with dissemination of specialized ongoing inquiry programs for a broader specialist public. The lectures are downloadable, together with when completed they volition correspond a highly valuable "new media" presentation of to a greater extent than or less real interesting together with challenging results inwards the historical sociology of China.

(James Lee together with his colleagues create got published quite a issue of books relevant to this course. Particularly meaning are One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology together with Chinese Realities, 1700-2000, Fate together with Fortune inwards Rural China: Social Organization together with Population Behavior inwards Liaoning 1774-1873, Life nether Pressure: Mortality together with Living Standards inwards Europe together with Asia, 1700-1900 (Eurasian Population together with Family History), each amongst co-authors.)