Hugh R. Clark - Böcker

Community, Trade, and Networks traces the economic and demographic history of a corner of China's southeast coast from the third to the thirteenth century, investigating the relationship between changes in the agrarian and urban economies of the area and the expanding role of domestic and foreign trade. It provides a fresh perspective on the role of commercialized production and trade in a regional economy in the premodern era and demonstrates that trade was able to drive change in a premodern economy in a way that has not generally been recognized.

Community, Trade, and Networks traces the economic and demographic history of a corner of China's southeast coast from the third to the thirteenth century, investigating the relationship between changes in the agrarian and urban economies of the area and the expanding role of domestic and foreign trade. It provides a fresh perspective on the role of commercialized production and trade in a regional economy in the premodern era and demonstrates that trade was able to drive change in a premodern economy in a way that has not generally been recognized.

Late in the 8th century, under the Tang dynasty, a local magnate led a land reclamation project on the Fujian coast that is emblematic of the encounter between the Sinitic culture of the Yellow River basin in northern China and the local cultures of the south. Later accounts say the drainage canals were undercut by a jiao, a mythological dragon-like beast that was a stand-in for the crocodiles that once inhabited the south China coast. The book uses this incident to explore the interaction between the indigenous pre-Sinitic people and culture of the Fujian coast with the Sinitic immigrants who arrived in growing numbers through the 8th century and after.