Joseph Needham famously asked why China did not have its own Industrial Revolution. Using a newly constructed database, guest speaker Yasheng Huang will show that China’s technological collapse happened much earlier than previously thought and the collapse coincided closely with the rise of autocracy and ideological homogeneity.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Yasheng Huang is the Epoch Foundation Professor of International Management, Professor of Global Economics and Management, and faculty director of action learning at MIT's Sloan School of Management. He is currently involved in research projects in three broad areas: 1) political economy of contemporary China, 2) historical technological and political developments in China, and 3) as a co-PI in “Food Safety in China: A Systematic Risk Management Approach” (supported by Walmart Foundation, 2016-). He has published numerous articles in academic journals and in media and 11 books in English and Chinese. His book, The Rise and the Fall of the EAST: Examination, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology in Chinese History and Today, will be published by Yale University Press in 2023.