Pat Giersch

Please join us for a lecture with:
Pat Giersch, Professor of History, Wellesley College
Moderated by:
Elizabeth Reynolds, Post-Doctoral Research Associate, History Department, Washington University in St. Louis
Tenacious patterns of inequality persist in the rural, largely minority regions of China. Such inequality is commonly attributed to geography, access to resources, and recent political developments. In Corporate Conquests, Pat Giersch provides a challenge to these conventional understandings by tracing the disempowerment of minority communities to the very beginnings of China's modern development. Focusing on the emergence of private and state corporations in Yunnan Province, the 1870s-1956, the book reveals how important new ideas and structures of power were forged, not along China's east coast, but along the nation's internal borderlands. It is a must-read for anyone wishing to learn about China's unique state capitalism and its contribution to inequality.