Chinese Money in Global Context Historic Junctures Beteen 600 BCE and 2012 [Hardcover]

Chinese Money in Global Context: Historic Junctures Between 600 BCE and 2012offers a groundbreaking interpretation of the Chinese monetary system, charting its evolution by examining key moments in history and placing them in international perspective.

Expertly navigating primary sources in multiple languages and across three millennia, Niv Horesh explores the trajectory of Chinese currency from the birth of coinage to the current global financial crisis. His narrative highlights the way that Chinese money developed in relation to the currencies of other countries, paying special attention to the origins of paper money; the relationship between the West's ascendancy and its mineral riches; the linkages between pre-modern finance and political economy; and looking ahead to the possible globalization of the RMB, the currency of the People's Republic of China. This analysis casts new light on the legacy of China's financial system both retrospectively and at presentwhen China's global influence looms large.

This is an ambitious study of an important topic by an economic historian well-versed in his specialty . . . [T]he persevering reader will benefit from the author's novel and painstaking comparative research . . . Recommended. The study of world monetary history has been excessively Eurocentric, and studies of Chinese money have often proven to be insular. Niv Horesh helpfully reaches across this divide with the excellent historical work in this volume. By focusing on money supply and the different forms of currency in use in Europe and China, Niv Horesh offers a compelling response to Rosenthal and Wong. He makes a major contribution to the Great Divergence debate . . . Horesh's method is exactly what Marc Bloch suggested so many years ago in his call for comparative history: to examine closely the history of disparate areas to generate new questions . . . For scholars working across a range of fields in economic history, [the book] will proml3+