FOR 596: Monies, Markets, and Finance in China and East Asia, 1600-1900: Local, Regional, National, and International Dimensions
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
The objective of the DFG Research Group was to investigate the interrelationships between Monies, Markets, and Finance in East Asia, with a temporal focus on the period from 1600 to 1900 and a special focus on China. In conclusion, the research group can be considered a highly successful and unusual undertaking which will leave a permanent legacy. The reason for this is that a substantial part of the project members will continue to do research on the topics addressed by the project and because a book series has been established with the renowned Brill Publishers which will not only keep up the memory of the research group’s existence, but will continue to promote and publish relevant studies. This research group project has upheld an approach that is characterized by its excitement of making use of new primary source materials, especially such of archival origin. At the same time, it adopted a variety of approaches and methods that highlighted the close interrelationship between the topics of monies, markets and finance and stressed their contextualization within their political, economic, social and cultural environment. Moreover, especially the second three-year period of the research group was marked not only by due consideration of local, regional, national and international dimensions (such as postulated by the project’s subtitle), but also by a growing awareness of, and involvement in, issues related to the early history of globalization and the role of Japan and, especially, China therein. We indeed have seen to it to junior scholars made themselves more familiar with the processes of globalization during that period, and we are confident that we succeeded in that respect. At the same time, we by all means defend the “ad fontes” approach, also because already a large amount of grand theoretical narratives exist, which, as we are convinced, are very often built on weak empirical foundations. Hence we fully support the concept of critical micro-history as a corrective to the frequently over-theorized and over-generalized approaches of macro-history, without – naturally – negating the heuristic utility of the latter. Further contributions in the wake of the research group will, no doubt, lend support to this concept of an adequate balancing of macro- and micro-histories.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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Monies, Markets and Finance in East Asia, 1600-1900. Vol. 1 (2010) ff. - Leiden: Brill Publishers
Hans Ulrich Vogel (editor-in-chief)
