#314 - Qing 45: The Big Squeeze

The Qing Empire did not collapse because it stopped working. It collapsed because it kept working — just barely — under pressures that compounded faster than reform could relieve them... Time Period Covered: ~1790s-1840s CE Major Works Cited: Jones, Susan Mann and Philip A. Kuhn. “Dynastic Decline and the Roots of Rebellion.” The Cambridge History of China, vol. 10: Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part I Kuhn, Philip A. Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796–1864. Pomeranz, Kenneth, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy.