Qing Chinese Imperial Lineage
Lee, James, and Wang Feng. 1999. One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and
Chinese Realities, 1700-2000. Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1-100
Danching Ruan, Jeff Stern and I were consultants to James Lee,
Cameron Campbell and Wang Feng on the China project as part of
the EurAsian Project
on Population and Family History (see Venice
meeting page). Objectives were similar to those of the NSF Gwembe
project: to link the study of family systems and household structure
to the analysis of individual and household demographic behavior
within a longitudinal framework that allows event-history analysis
to be combined with time-series analysis. Long-run economic stress
(Malthusian), short-run economic stress (boom and bust; harvest
failure), and demographic stress on the family (deaths of important
members, etc.) are examined as independent variables. The China
project also looks at marriage alliance patterns and inbreeding
in terms of demographic effects, and it is here that some of the
pgraph approaches are in use.
The 1999 book by Lee and Feng represents a vast expansion of Lee's original
work and is an ongoing project.