This book is unique in its depth of perspective. It uses a comparative approach to explain why China’s role in the world economy has changed so dramatically in the last thousand years. It concludes that China is likely to resume its natural role as the world’s largest economy by the year 2015, thus regaining the position it had held until the end of the nineteenth century.
The study provides a major reassessment of the scale and scope of China’s resurgence over the past half century, employing quantitative measurement techniques which are standard practice in OECD countries, but which have not hitherto been available for China.
Written by the author of many studies on comparative economic history, including two best sellers for the OECD Development Centre, this book is essential reading for all those who seek to understand the role of China in the world economy, in the past, as well as in the present and the future.

Chinese economic performance in the long run

The Pattern of the Chinese Past

Summary

AimThis is the first comprehensive account of the biogeography of ants transferred and at least temporarily established outside their native habitat.



LocationUsing museum and literature records, I established the distributions of transferred ant species.



MethodsI used taxonomic and functional groups to assess how geographical spread as a transferred species is affected by taxonomy and life history.



Results147 ant species in forty-nine genera have been recorded outside of their native habitat. The proportion of transferred ants is similar to the number of genera and species in each subfamily. The species-rich subfamily Myrmicinae contains nearly 50% of all transferred species, while many of the species-poor subfamilies have absolutely no transferred species. A disproportionate high number of transferred ants originate from the Neotropical and Oriental biogeographic regions. The Pacific Islands are the recipients of the most transferred ant species. Most transferred ants belong to the CRYPTIC, OPPORTUNIST, and GENERALIZED MYRMICINE functional groups, while there are no recorded transfers of army ants or leaf-cutting ants. Both invasive and human commensal ‘tramp’ ant species are nonrandom subsets of transferred ants.



Main conclusions‘Tramp’ species and invasive species tend to have widespread geographical distributions, and share life history characteristics including queen number, nest structure, and foraging behaviour. Combining observations of functional groups and biogeography may lead to a better understanding of the factors contributing to the spread of transferred species.

The worldwide transfer of ants: geographical distribution and ecological invasions

1. Introduction 2. Fear, interest and honor 3. The spirit and its expression 4. The ancient world 5. Medieval Europe 6. From Sun King to Revolution 7. Imperialism and World War I 8. World War II 9. Hitler to Bush and beyond 10. General findings and conclusions.

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A Cultural Theory of International Relations

The City in Late Imperial China.

The Chinese World Order.

How are we to understand the history of a nonmodern civilization without refracting and distorting what we see through the prism of the ostensibly individualistic and egalitarian modern culture in which most of us live and which we tend to take as normative? In this article I invite other modern-minded readers to turn our worldview upside down and look at Chinese society over the long term from the perspective of its official ideology and not from the perspective of a universalized modern worldview in which economic relations are privileged above all others.

Chinese Hierarchy in Comparative Perspective

A Checklist of the Ants of Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand (Hymenoptera: Formicidae).

The Ladder of Success in Imperial China: Aspects of Social Mobility, 1368–1911. By Ping-ti Ho. [Studies of the East Asian Institute.] (New York: Columbia University Press. 1962. Pp. xviii, 385. $8.00.)

Romeyn Taylor

Papers

The Chinese World Order.

Chinese Hierarchy in Comparative Perspective

A Checklist of the Ants of Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand (Hymenoptera: Formicidae).

The Ladder of Success in Imperial China: Aspects of Social Mobility, 1368–1911. By Ping-ti Ho. [Studies of the East Asian Institute.] (New York: Columbia University Press. 1962. Pp. xviii, 385. $8.00.)

Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China.