Abstract

Chinese Business History in the People's Republic of China

Reviewing historiographical development in China, Harold Kahn and Albert Feuerwerker observed in 1964 how Chinese historians moved from the classroom to the platform in "a genuine attempt to find legitimization in China's past for the domestic and external developments of her most recent present."1 Little seems to have changed thirty-two years later and developments have been attributed to a state-sponsored pluralism.2 With a decade of economic reform since 1979, and another half-decade since 1991, it is perhaps an opportune time to take stock of changes in historiography, specifically business history, in China.