Sugar and Society in China

Book excerpt: In this study Sucheta Mazumdar offers an answer to the fundamental question of why China, universally acknowledged as one of the most developed economies in the world throughout the mid-18th century, paused in this development process in the 19th century. Focusing on cane-sugar production, domestic and international trade, technology, and the history of consumption for over 1000 years as a means of framing the larger questions, the author shows that the economy of late imperial China was not stagnant, nor was the state suppressing trade: indeed China was integrated into the world market well before the Opium War. However, the trajectory of development did not transform the social organization of production or set in motion sustained economic growth.