Economic history in China: Tradition, divergence and potential

The Soviet version of Marxist theory of history was regarded as the supreme guide in the study of Chinese history. A good number of works of Russian and Soviet economic history were also introduced. Because Marxism emphasizes the determinant of the “economic base”, economic history held the central position in the new history. Marxism provided a theoretic framework of analysis of economic history, which was missing in previous mainstream scholarship. The development of Chinese historiography between 1949 and the 1960s received a great deal of attention in the Soviet Union, where it has largely been assessed in ideological and political terms. The openness toward and awareness of the new theories and paradigms are significant to Chinese economic historians. For Chinese scholars, the job of creating economic history with Chinese characteristics is linked closely with another job: taking full account of trends in global scholarship.