Arunabh Ghosh
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 3586475 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Arunabh Ghosh |
| PRENOMES | Arunabh |
| SOBRENOME | Ghosh |
| ASSINATURA | GHOSH A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Harvard University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9300-7997 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 17 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 16 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 17 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2016 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 2 |
The Contradictions of Dam Building in the People’s Republic of China
Scholars often characterise dam building as an instance of high modernism par excellence. Such characterisations typically imagine dams as gargantuan projects that involve government elites drawing on technoscientific expertise to re-engineer the physical environment to serve a political regime’s developmental objectives. This article complicates this high modernist understanding of dam building through an investigation of the People’s Republic o…
Work Points in the People's Republic of China, 1950s to the 1980s
Even though agriculture was not the central thrust of planning in Mao-era China (1949–1976), starting in the 1950s, the party-state progressively nationalized land, reorganized social relations in the countryside, and instituted a universal system of wages that fundamentally reshaped rural China. Quantifying and measuring agricultural labor, in particular, developed into an increasingly important task as the state became not just the sole purveyo…
The Significance of Small Things
From less than three dozen in 1949, the number of small hydropower stations in the People's Republic of China grew to nearly ninety thousand by 1979. By the early 1980s, these stations were distributed across nearly 1,600 of China's 2,300 counties. In 770 counties, small hydropower was the primary source of rural electricity generation. This article offers a history and assessment of these developments, unsettling our traditional emphasis on larg…
China's Cold War Science Diplomacy
In this revisionist history, Gordon Barrett seeks to show that, contra our impression of the People's Republic of China as a scientifically isolated country during its early decades, it was an active participant in international scientific networks. The key concept, as suggested by the book's title, is “science diplomacy,” which, Barrett explains, continues to defy definitional consensus. He does, however, offer a working one for the PRC: the clo…
On Transnational and International History
In 2006, the American Historical Review published “AHR Conversation: On Transnational History,” and it remains to date among the journal’s most downloaded articles.1 The conversation featured six established historians discussing the so-called transnational turn in the discipline, offering reflections on both the many possibilities and the challenges of researching and writing history that moved across traditional geographic divisions. Nearly two…
China and India in the Age of Decolonization
Trans-Himalayan science in mid-twentieth century China and India
This paper uses the decade-long collaboration between the Indian paleobotanist Birbal Sahni (1891–1949) and his Chinese doctoral student Hsü Jen (Xu Ren 徐仁, 1910–1992) to offer a connected history of mid-twentieth century scientific activity in China and India. Possibly the first Chinese scientist to earn a PhD from an Indian university (Lucknow, 1946), Hsü was certainly the first to be appointed to a faculty position in India. Sahni and Hsü's at…
Multiple makings at China’s first hydroelectric power station at Shilongba, 1908–1912
China’s first hydroelectric station began producing electricity in 1912, a year better known for marking the end of imperial rule and the advent of republican governance. Located a short distance outside of the southwestern city of Kunming, Shilongba (Stone Dragon Dam) was a cross-cultural endeavour that involved long-distance encounters of both materials and expertise that spanned not just vast expanses within China, but also a world divided by …
Making It Count
Making It Count
In 1949, at the end of a long period of wars, one of the biggest challenges facing leaders of the new People's Republic of China was how much they did not know. The government of one of the world's largest nations was committed to fundamentally reengineering its society and economy via socialist planning while having almost no reliable statistical data about their own country. This book is the history of efforts to resolve this “crisis in countin…
Making It Count
A history of how Chinese officials used statistics to define a new society in the early years of the People's Republic of China In 1949, at the end of a long period of wars, one of the biggest challenges facing leaders of the new People's Republic of China was how much they did not know. The government of one of the world's largest nations was committed to fundamentally reengineering its society and economy via socialist planning while having alm…
Commentary
This essay offers commentary on the previous three articles regarding PRC-era science by Sarah Mellors, Chuan Xu, and Sigrid Schmalzer. It notes that by moving beyond older concerns that were centered on issues of state control or techno-nationalism, these articles exemplify new directions in the study of PRC-era science. Their focus on lived experience, local stories, and materiality provides rich and diverse perspectives on histories of science…
The China Questions
Book Discussion
Lies, Damned Lies, and (Bourgeois) Statistics
Is there a correct way to ascertain social fact? As late as the 1950s, the scientific community remained divided over this question. Its resolution involved not just epistemological and theoretical debates on the unity or disunity of statistical science but also practical considerations surrounding state-capacity building. For scientists in places like the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union, at stake was the very ability to rea…
Before 1962
China-India history of the 1950s remains mired in concerns related to border demarcations and a teleological focus on the causes, course, and consequences of the war of 1962. The result is an overt emphasis on diplomatic and international history of a rather narrow form. In critiquing this narrowness, this article offers an alternate chronology accompanied by two substantive case studies. Taken together, they demonstrate that an approach that tak…
Accepting difference, seeking common ground
Starting as early as 1951, and with increasing urgency after 1956, Chinese and Indian statisticians traded visits as they sought to learn from each other's experiences. At the heart of these exchanges was the desire to learn more about a cutting-edge statistical method, random sampling, which, while technically complex, held great practical salience for large and diverse countries such as China and India. This paper draws upon unpublished documen…
Before 1962
China-India history of the 1950s remains mired in concerns related to border demarcations and a teleological focus on the causes, course, and consequences of the war of 1962. The result is an overt emphasis on diplomatic and international history of a rather narrow form. In critiquing this narrowness, this article offers an alternate chronology accompanied by two substantive case studies. Taken together, they demonstrate that an approach that tak…
Accepting difference, seeking common ground
Starting as early as 1951, and with increasing urgency after 1956, Chinese and Indian statisticians traded visits as they sought to learn from each other's experiences. At the heart of these exchanges was the desire to learn more about a cutting-edge statistical method, random sampling, which, while technically complex, held great practical salience for large and diverse countries such as China and India. This paper draws upon unpublished documen…
The Significance of Small Things
From less than three dozen in 1949, the number of small hydropower stations in the People's Republic of China grew to nearly ninety thousand by 1979. By the early 1980s, these stations were distributed across nearly 1,600 of China's 2,300 counties. In 770 counties, small hydropower was the primary source of rural electricity generation. This article offers a history and assessment of these developments, unsettling our traditional emphasis on larg…
Lies, Damned Lies, and (Bourgeois) Statistics
Is there a correct way to ascertain social fact? As late as the 1950s, the scientific community remained divided over this question. Its resolution involved not just epistemological and theoretical debates on the unity or disunity of statistical science but also practical considerations surrounding state-capacity building. For scientists in places like the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union, at stake was the very ability to rea…
Accepting difference, seeking common ground
Starting as early as 1951, and with increasing urgency after 1956, Chinese and Indian statisticians traded visits as they sought to learn from each other's experiences. At the heart of these exchanges was the desire to learn more about a cutting-edge statistical method, random sampling, which, while technically complex, held great practical salience for large and diverse countries such as China and India. This paper draws upon unpublished documen…
Before 1962
China-India history of the 1950s remains mired in concerns related to border demarcations and a teleological focus on the causes, course, and consequences of the war of 1962. The result is an overt emphasis on diplomatic and international history of a rather narrow form. In critiquing this narrowness, this article offers an alternate chronology accompanied by two substantive case studies. Taken together, they demonstrate that an approach that tak…
The China Questions
Book Discussion
Lies, Damned Lies, and (Bourgeois) Statistics
Is there a correct way to ascertain social fact? As late as the 1950s, the scientific community remained divided over this question. Its resolution involved not just epistemological and theoretical debates on the unity or disunity of statistical science but also practical considerations surrounding state-capacity building. For scientists in places like the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union, at stake was the very ability to rea…
Commentary
This essay offers commentary on the previous three articles regarding PRC-era science by Sarah Mellors, Chuan Xu, and Sigrid Schmalzer. It notes that by moving beyond older concerns that were centered on issues of state control or techno-nationalism, these articles exemplify new directions in the study of PRC-era science. Their focus on lived experience, local stories, and materiality provides rich and diverse perspectives on histories of science…
Making It Count
Making It Count
In 1949, at the end of a long period of wars, one of the biggest challenges facing leaders of the new People's Republic of China was how much they did not know. The government of one of the world's largest nations was committed to fundamentally reengineering its society and economy via socialist planning while having almost no reliable statistical data about their own country. This book is the history of efforts to resolve this “crisis in countin…
Making It Count
A history of how Chinese officials used statistics to define a new society in the early years of the People's Republic of China In 1949, at the end of a long period of wars, one of the biggest challenges facing leaders of the new People's Republic of China was how much they did not know. The government of one of the world's largest nations was committed to fundamentally reengineering its society and economy via socialist planning while having alm…
China and India in the Age of Decolonization
Trans-Himalayan science in mid-twentieth century China and India
This paper uses the decade-long collaboration between the Indian paleobotanist Birbal Sahni (1891–1949) and his Chinese doctoral student Hsü Jen (Xu Ren 徐仁, 1910–1992) to offer a connected history of mid-twentieth century scientific activity in China and India. Possibly the first Chinese scientist to earn a PhD from an Indian university (Lucknow, 1946), Hsü was certainly the first to be appointed to a faculty position in India. Sahni and Hsü's at…
Multiple makings at China’s first hydroelectric power station at Shilongba, 1908–1912
China’s first hydroelectric station began producing electricity in 1912, a year better known for marking the end of imperial rule and the advent of republican governance. Located a short distance outside of the southwestern city of Kunming, Shilongba (Stone Dragon Dam) was a cross-cultural endeavour that involved long-distance encounters of both materials and expertise that spanned not just vast expanses within China, but also a world divided by …
On Transnational and International History
In 2006, the American Historical Review published “AHR Conversation: On Transnational History,” and it remains to date among the journal’s most downloaded articles.1 The conversation featured six established historians discussing the so-called transnational turn in the discipline, offering reflections on both the many possibilities and the challenges of researching and writing history that moved across traditional geographic divisions. Nearly two…
China's Cold War Science Diplomacy
In this revisionist history, Gordon Barrett seeks to show that, contra our impression of the People's Republic of China as a scientifically isolated country during its early decades, it was an active participant in international scientific networks. The key concept, as suggested by the book's title, is “science diplomacy,” which, Barrett explains, continues to defy definitional consensus. He does, however, offer a working one for the PRC: the clo…
The Contradictions of Dam Building in the People’s Republic of China
Scholars often characterise dam building as an instance of high modernism par excellence. Such characterisations typically imagine dams as gargantuan projects that involve government elites drawing on technoscientific expertise to re-engineer the physical environment to serve a political regime’s developmental objectives. This article complicates this high modernist understanding of dam building through an investigation of the People’s Republic o…
Work Points in the People's Republic of China, 1950s to the 1980s
Even though agriculture was not the central thrust of planning in Mao-era China (1949–1976), starting in the 1950s, the party-state progressively nationalized land, reorganized social relations in the countryside, and instituted a universal system of wages that fundamentally reshaped rural China. Quantifying and measuring agricultural labor, in particular, developed into an increasingly important task as the state became not just the sole purveyo…
The Significance of Small Things
From less than three dozen in 1949, the number of small hydropower stations in the People's Republic of China grew to nearly ninety thousand by 1979. By the early 1980s, these stations were distributed across nearly 1,600 of China's 2,300 counties. In 770 counties, small hydropower was the primary source of rural electricity generation. This article offers a history and assessment of these developments, unsettling our traditional emphasis on larg…
China (12 obras) · Political science (12 obras) · Law (11 obras) · Politics (10 obras) · History (8 obras) · Chinese history and philosophy (7 obras) · Geography (5 obras) · Archaeology (4 obras) · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies (4 obras) · Computer Science (4 obras)