This book explores the economic history of the traditional Chinese iron industry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with particular emphasis on the interactions among technological, economic and geographic factors. The traditional technology of iron production is described together with the ways in which it changed and developed in response to upheavals wrought by foreign competition, war and revolution and by the growth in China of a modern iron industry. Many of the book's findings are counter-intuitive, and will provide food for thought in the study of Third World industrial development. The author has written widely on the history of science and technology in China, and is currently engaged in writing the volume on ferrous metallurgy for Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China.

The 2004 volume examines the newly adopted Chinese government policy designed to aid the development of China's western regions. It considers the political and economic context of the campaign and then examines its potential impact in seven provincial level jurisdictions - Xinjiang, Qinghai, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Yunnan and Guizhou.

Includes the Proceedings of the Royal geographical society, formerly pub. separately.

The opening of local archives to Western scholars in the 1980's has provided the basis for this reexamination of civil law in Qing and Republican China. This pathbreaking volume demonstrates that, contrary to previous scholarly understanding, Qing and Republican courts dealt extensively with such civil matters as land rights, debt, marriage, and inheritance, and did so with striking consistency and in conformity with the written code.