Prof Kent Deng SAR 517

This course is available on the MA in Asian and International History (LSE and NUS), MRes/PhD in Quantitative Economic History, MSc in China in Comparative Perspective, MSc in Development Studies, MSc in Economic History, MSc in Economic History (Research), MSc in Empires, Colonialism and Globalisation, MSc in Global Economic History (Erasmus Mundus), MSc in Global Politics, MSc in International and Asian History and MSc in Political Economy of Late Development. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access).  In previous years we have been able to provide places for all students that apply, but that may not continue to be the case.

Knowledge of Asian history of the relevant period and region would be an advantage.

EH446 is, in nature, a guided reading course. Students will obtain in-depth knowledge of conditions and paths of economic growth and development in East Asia and Southeast Asia in past centuries, and become engaged in the ongoing scholarly debate.

The first part of the course looks at premodern/traditional economic performance, including resource endowments, institutions, technology and economic structures that evolved indepently in Asia over time to support a large population with reasonable standards of living.  The second part of the course examines early modern East Asia and Sourtheast Asia in the context of 'product-rich economies', and easy access to international trade, and Western colonisation of the region.  The third part examines modern growth in East Asia and Sourtheast Asia, including the conditions and transformations in post-Opium War China, Meiji Japan, post-WWII 'Asian Tigers', ASEAN, China under post-Mao reforms, and 'new Asia' in the global economy today.

Main debates in scholarship are included as the course moves on.

10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the MT. 10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the LT. 1 hour of lectures in the ST.

This course is delivered through a combination of classes and lectures totalling a minimum of 40 hours across Michaelmas Term and Lent Term. 

This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Michaelmas Term and Week 6 of Lent Term.  

Students are expected to write two essays or equivalent pieces of written work.

• A G Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (1998);

• K Pomeranz, The Great Divergence (2000);

• J M Hobson Multicultural Origins of the Global Economy (2021);

• World Bank, The East Asian Miracle (1993);

• I Brown, Economic Change in Southeast Asia (1997).

• Rui H and P. Nolan, Globalisation, Transition and Development in China (2004).

Exam (70%, duration: 2 hours) in the summer exam period.
Essay (30%, 3500 words).