Peng is an enormously valuable compendium of monetary facts, but his
interpretation of monetary events sometimes does not go much beyond
repeating the biased comments  he finds in traditional texts.

I am somewhat perplexed by some of Schuler’s conclusions, which seem to me
guided almost entirely by modern expectations, contradicting both Peng's
study, and the facts themselves.  I would be happy to defend this opinion if
anyone differs.

Regarding the specific claim

 KS  <<By 1700, though, it had fallen behind European financial practice,
and it was slow to adopt more modern forms of organization and banking
technique.>>

Back in 1946 Maverick took a rather contrary view, in his “China, a Model
for Europe”.  That the publication of “Confucius Sinarum Philosophicus” in
1687 marked a turning point in European monetary thought, China influencing
Quesnay, and thereby Adam Smith.

Arguably this viewpoint does fit the facts.  Once the Romans had left,
Britain did not again get a copious copper coinage before about 1880.  An
important milestone along the road to that point seems to be George
Berkeley's call, (well before Quesnay I believe) in “The Querist”, for an
emulation of China, and a copious copper coinage to aid general prosperity.

Rob Tye

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Mon, 2 Jul 2012 11:43:31 -0400, Humberto Barreto <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>------ EH.NET <http://eh.net/> BOOK REVIEW ------
>
>Title: A Monetary History of China
>
>Published by EH.Net (July 2012)
>
>Peng Xinwei, *A Monetary History of China*. Bellingham, WA: Center for East
>Asian Studies, University of Western Washington, 1994.  (Translation by
>Edward H. Kaplan of *Zhongguo huobi shi*, third edition, Shanghai, 1965.)
>xlix + 929 pp. (2 volumes) $50 (paperback), ISBN: 0914584812.
>
>Reviewed for EH.Net by Kurt Schuler, Center for Financial Stability.
>
>Anyone who claims to know the history of civilization must know something
>of the history of China. Even so, Peng Xinwei’s monumental book, published
>almost half a century ago in Chinese and almost two decades ago in English
>translation, has remained obscure among economists.  The translation, the
>only version likely to be accessible to most readers outside of China,
>seems never to have been reviewed in any economics journal or Web site,
>though it is known to historians and numismatists who specialize in China.
>I am therefore writing to call attention to a work that has few peers as a
>feat of scholarship in monetary history.
>
>Peng Xinwei (1907-1967) studied economics at the London School of Economics
>and apparently also studied or lived in Japan at some point. Before the
>communist takeover of China in 1949 he worked as a banker; afterwards, he
>taught economics at Fudan University in Shanghai.  The first edition of his
>book appeared in 1954. He finished revising the third edition in 1962 and
>it was published in 1965. He died as one of the hundreds of thousands of
>victims of Mao’s great bonfire of Chinese civilization, the Cultural
>Revolution. Edward Kaplan (1936-2006), the translator, was an associate
>professor of history at Western Washington University. The translation, an
>impressive feat of scholarship in its own right, was published by the
>university’s Center for East Asian Studies, from which it remains available.
>
>The book spans the whole of Chinese monetary history from centuries before
>the birth of Christ to the end of imperial rule in 1911. Had Peng written
>about the republican period, his life might have been cut short even
>sooner. Peng sprinkled some Marxist catch phrases about feudalism,
>imperialism, and colonialism into his writing, but they are merely
>protective coloration and do not affect his analysis, which is far more
>influenced by Carl Menger than by Karl Marx.
>
>The book is divided into eight parts, corresponding to major Chinese
>dynastic periods. Within each part, Peng covers the monetary systems,
>purchasing power of money, monetary thought, and credit institutions of a
>period. To understand how large a task Peng set for himself, one must
>understand that China’s huge size and population make it in many respects
>more like a continent than a country. China has frequently had multiple
>monarchies within its current borders, and even when under a single
>government has had wide provincial or local variations in monetary
>arrangements.
>
>Certain historical motifs strike the reader. One is the persistence of
>copper rather than gold or silver as the basis of most everyday monetary
>transactions. Another is the resort to depreciation, fiat paper money, and
>relatively high inflation by dying dynasties trying to finance their
>governments. The dynasties that replaced them extinguished the old currency
>and followed sounder monetary policies until they too got themselves into
>financial difficulty. Yet another theme is the paucity of Chinese monetary
>thought, inferior to European monetary thought well before Europe’s
>scientific revolution. Finally, there is the interplay between the
>government and the private sector. The government frequently failed in
>providing an adequate supply of coinage or a trustworthy paper currency.
>The private sector, to the extent it was allowed to do so or could evade
>the law, sought to fill the gaps, but often met with hostility from
>government officials that was counterproductive to China’s economic
>development.
>
>China was the first country to have coins, or the first along with Lydia in
>Asia Minor; the first to have paper currency, free banking (competitive
>issue of notes), and a government monopoly of paper currency; perhaps the
>first to have a kind of currency board (circa 1270); and a pioneer in some
>fairly sophisticated forms of exchange control. By 1700, though, it had
>fallen behind European financial practice, and it was slow to adopt more
>modern forms of organization and banking technique. After adopting them, it
>then discarded them for a while under communism, which was what turned Peng
>himself from banking to an academic career.
>
>I am a reader of Chinese monetary history but, knowing no Chinese, not a
>scholar of the subject. Among those who are scholars, the book continues to
>be cited in English and, I am told, in Chinese. Like other works of its
>kind, it has been superseded in many particulars. The reason for its
>continuing value is the flavor of the intellect that could produce a work
>of such scale and scope — an intellect rare enough in any time or place
>that it merits notice even decades belatedly.
>
>Kurt Schuler is Senior Fellow in Financial History at the Center for
>Financial Stability in New York. He is the editor of*Historical Financial
>Statistics*, a free, online data set at the Center. These are his personal
>views.
>
>Copyright (c) 2012 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied
>for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and
>the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator (
>[log in to unmask]). Published by EH.Net (July 2012). All EH.Net reviews
>are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
>
>Geographic Location: Asia
>Subject: Financial Markets, Financial Institutions, and Monetary History
>Time: General or Comparative
>